Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the first post of this series, I proposed that the sacraments of baptism and communion are the nexus point for the evangelical and ecumenical movements. In the following post , I proposed a new orientation for ecumenism – a conciliarity of the cross – with the necessary confession of…
“Contextualization” is now, and has been for a long time, the buzzword for the day. 1 Missionary effort in non-Western countries is all about “contextualization” — making our communication of the Gospel, if not the Gospel itself, fit into the culture to whom we from the West speak. 2 There…
In my previous post , I highlighted the sacraments as the point of convergence between evangelicalism and ecumenism arguing that baptism and communion are presented in the New Testament as signs of the gospel that simultaneously enact and remember union with Christ and the unity of Christ’s body. I concluded…
Click HERE for Part I of this series. What does baptism have to do with culture? As I said in the previous essay, the short answer is “everything!” To begin with, baptism is baptism into Jesus’ death (Romans 6:3). Paul explains this as the crucifixion of the “old man” (“old…
In the accounts of our Lord’s nativity and early childhood, so familiar to us from many years of Advent and Christmas services, we often fail to recognize in them the gentle intimations of a greater nativity that is yet to come. The attentive ear, however, can discover in these passages…
Isaiah warns that Yahweh is coming to remove Judah’s leaders in every area of social, economic and political life so completely that there will be no one left to lead besides children (3:4) and women (v. 12). As Isaiah goes on, however, it becomes clear that the women of Judah…
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Philip Roth famously announced last year that he was quitting. Writing in the TLS , Adan Thirlwell suggests that what he’s actually doing is continuing his career in an inverted fashion. Thirlwell cites a 1984 interview with Hermione Lee, where Roth described his working method: “Making fake biography, false history,…
In an essay on Dostoevsky and evil in Between Religion and Rationality , Joseph Frank observes that Dostoevsky frequently leads readers into moral horrors, but his “unflinching explorations of evil” don’t leave readers paralyzed. How does that work? Frank traces Dostoevsky’s depiction of evil to his prison experience, recounted in…
In one of his late essays in Speech Genres , Bakhtin traces the secularization of literature to the solvent effects of irony: “Irony has penetrated all languages of modern times (especially French); it has penetrated into all words and forms . . . Irony is everywhere - from the minimal…
In a 1988 article in the Journal of Literature and Theology (2:1), Milbank sketches the contours of a “theology without substance.” Along the way, he offers a critique of Augustine’s signum-res distinction and the implied metaphysics. On the one hand, Augustine pours some of the foundations for a Christian linguistics…
Ronald Osborn’s Death Before the Fall is two books in one, as the subtitle suggests: “Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering.” Part of the book is a critique of “literalism,” especially as expressed in young-earth creationism, the other part is an exegetical defense of the notion that animal…
Jesus threatens to throw the self-appointed prophetess Jezebel onto a bed (Revelation 3:22). The threat carries multiple resonances. The original Jezebel died by being thrown from a window to the ground in front of conquering Jehu. Jesus is the new Jehu throwing Jezebel to her deathbed. It’s fitting that she’s…
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