Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The 2002 Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference and the Assurance of Grace Recently, there has been some controversy over the presentations of four speakers at the Auburn Avenue Pastor’s Conference. Accusations have been made including a denial of justification by faith alone and something close enough to “baptismal regeneration” that it…
Today, many in the Reformed world view a meritorious covenant of works as essential to a proper understanding of the gospel. These theologians believe that God set up a program in the Garden by which Adam would merit eternal life and blessing by his obedience. These same theologians usually regard…
After I graduated from college in 1989, I spent a summer in the Atlanta area in Georgia learning that I was not cut out for construction work. Then I met George Grant, one of my favorite authors. He was working for a church in South Florida in charge of their…
One meaning of “righteousness” in the Bible is moral uprightness. Perhaps a more basic meaning would be faithfulness. For example, Psalm 96.13 praises God, saying: He will judge the world in righteousness, And the peoples in faithfulness. In Hebrew poetry two lines often say the same thing using different words.…
I once saw “eschatology” defined as the study of edible French snails. But it really means the doctrine of the last things in Christian theology. In American Evangelical culture it is usually reduced to science fiction stories. But for the Apostle Paul it was actually the key to the Christian…
To understand the view of Nicholas Thomas Wright regarding Christ’s work of redemption, one must begin with the centrality of Adam to the plight of the human race. Anyone who has heard Wright’s lectures on Philippians will not be able to forget his haunting appeal to Genesis 5.3 as a…
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Charon Ross offers a brilliant analysis of rock concerts as ecstatic experiences ( Gifts Glittering and Poisoned , 132-4). The concert is a carefully orchestrated symbolic constellation “designed to enable the spectator to have experiences of ecstasy so wonderful and powerful that they are difficult to capture with words. Euphoria…
What Do Pictures Want? seems an odd title for a book on picture theory. WJT Mitchell intends his title to highlight the “double consciousness” that we have toward images. “why is it that people have such strange attitudes toward images, objects, and media? Why do they behave as if pictures…
Detached from the Eucharistic liturgy, preaching is at sea. Preachers announce the gospel and call our people to faith. We also want to give them something to do. There are dangers on both sides: We may so much emphasize the grace of God that we provide sophisticated excuses for passivity…
A year ago, Sarah Ditum wrote a piece for The New Statesman that compared abortion with organ donation, pointing out that the demands on a pregnant woman's body are far greater than the demands laid on organ donors: “giving away a bagful of gore or a chunk of liver that…
According to Fintan O'Toole's NYRB review , James Shapiro's The Year of Lear helps to unravel some of the mysteries of that most haunting of Shakespeare's tragedies. O'Toole nicely captures why the play is so haunting: “King Lear is not apocalyptic, it is far worse. Instead of deserved damnation and…
Geert Buelens's Everything To Nothing offers a European-wide review of the poets writing before and during World War I. It is a tour de force , recalling forgotten poets to vivid life and setting better-known poets in a new European context. The poets, he argues, were not only observers but…
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