Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Why there is more to Jephthah than meets than eye It was not that long ago that I realized the Jephthah-story and the Jesus-story were basically the same story. Sounds crazy, I know. But here is a one-paragraph synopsis of both: The people of God have gone their own way,…
G.K. Chesterton famously said that the Gospels don’t reveal Jesus’ mirth. It’s true we never catch Jesus laughing. But can we believe He never did? I don’t think so. Laughter is human, and Jesus was fully human. Jesus promised that those who mourned would laugh. He mourned; would He not…
Matthew 2 has all the elements of an exodus story. There’s a murderous king, who slaughters Jewish babies. There’s a infant who will be Israel’s future deliverer, saved from the murderous king so He can later return to save His people and lead them to the Promised land. There’s an…
The calendar of Israel was primarily theological, centered on commemorating the salvific acts of God, but also agricultural, celebrating the creation-restoring effects of those salvific acts. The feasts of the first month celebrated the reviving of the world in the Spring, and typified the cutting off of the Savior in…
The chiastic shape corresponds to the shape of human life. This should not surprise us, because we are made in the image of God, and God is manifest in Word and Spirit. If we are living epistles, our lives will look a bit like the literary shape of the books…
Back in January, Venkatesh Rao wrote a fascinating post on the Ribbonfarm blog, discussing different forms of models of narrative. Engaging with Ursula LeGuin’s talk ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ , Rao explores her contrast between the (male) ‘hero narrative’ and the (female) ‘carrier-bag story’, and suggests a third…
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Philip Roth, Everyman . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 182 pp. Paperback, $13.00. When Death comes to fetch him in the medieval morality play, Everyman is abandoned by Friends, Kin, Beauty, and Goods. At least Good Works, purified through penance, accompanies him and gives access to heaven. Philip Roth’s Everyman, the…
Philip Roth, Everyman . Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 182 pp. Paperback, $13.00. When Death comes to fetch him in the medieval morality play, Everyman is abandoned by Friends, Kin, Beauty, and Goods. At least Good Works, purified through penance, accompanies him and gives access to heaven. Philip Roth’s Everyman, the…
When the constitutional treaty for the European Union deleted references to Europe’s Christian heritage, many quite rightly protested this remarkable act of self-induced amnesia. But it was really old news. From the time of the French Revolution, “Europe” was redefined, first in France and then throughout Europe, without reference to…
Jefferson claimed that “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” But this “us” is a very narrow slice of the human race. As Rosenstock-Huessy says, “The obvious weakness of the new-born child, of the old man, of the dependent servant, of the ill or…
Writing in 1821, John Quincy Adams observed the massive difficulty of introducing metric measurements. Measurement so permeats society that an immediate change in standards would “affect the well-being of man, woman and child, in the community.” He noted, “Weights and measures may be ranked among the necessities of life to…
Rosenstock-Huessy points out, “For two hundred years the Lutheran patricians in Frankfurt had prevented even their Calvinist competitors from living in the city. Not until 1780, nine years before the conquest of the Bastille, did the Calvinist merchants get permission to build their church in Frankfurt itself instead of in…
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