Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This was a newspaper column that I wrote for the Minco Millennium back in January of 2000 when I had first moved to Minco, Oklahoma to pastor First Reformed Presbyterian Church. I wasn’t able to catch the recent performance of the musical, Godspell , in Oklahoma City. However, my dad…
Awhile back, there was a big debate among Evangelicals as to whether one had to trust Jesus “as Lord” as well as “as savior. Some claimed that one could be saved by Jesus through a faith that did not involve submission to him as Lord. Others claimed that one must…
I originally wrote this a few weeks ago in April 2002 as a column in the local newspaper, The Minco Millennium under the title “Faith & Follow-Through.” Several passages in the book of Hebrews are difficult for Protestants to swallow. The author affirms the once-and-for-all work of Christ and yet…
N. T. Wright’s commentary on Romans is destined to be a classic. The introduction alone is worth the hefty price of the book — but the exegesis itself is, well, priceless. I will not attempt a full review — these are just miscellaneous thoughts and random reflections — but I…
At an inn in the town of Lystra three men sat around a corner table. All three were well-known disciples of Joshua Messiah, members of what the town called a new cult, the Way. The short gray-haired man with the enormous beard was clearly restless. “This is taking too long,”…
Recently there has been some surprising debate in some circles over where Paul summarizes his Gospel. I say “surprising” because many Evangelical Bible scholars have held, for quite some time, that Paul’s Gospel is encapsulated in Romans chapter 1, verse 3 and 4. Here is the passage in context: Paul,…
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Zizek ( The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? ) thinks that John Caputo and Giorgio Agamben are right to say that Nietzsche’s declaration of the death of God could only turn inside out. According to them ( After the Death of God ), “if there’s no overarching principle, that…
In his effort to “think with” Carl Schmitt ( Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty ), Paul Kahn uses a “sacrificial” conception of sovereignty to isolate differences between America and Europe, and between pre-modern and modern states. America v. Europe first (16-17): “To the question of…
Bauman ( Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age , 144-5) gives several examples of how the pressure of research and military planning lead to atrocities. One occurred in the German town of Wurzburg in March 1945, “when Nazi Germany was already on its knees and the speedy end…
In his Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age , Zygmunt Bauman refers to the work of Gunther Anders on the “Nagasaki syndrome,” which Anders warned carried “the fully and truly apocalyptic potential of ‘globicide.’” The Nagasaki syndrom “means that ‘what has been done once can be repeated over…
Some punishments, Thomas says ( ST , I-II, 87), are punishments strictly speaking, some are satisfactory, some are medicinal. Punishment strictly speaking is the repression of order that retaliates against an offense committed against the order (art. 1). A violation of man’s own order of reason is punished by remorse…
James Jordan has pointed out that the book of Revelation gives us seven names for Satan: Wormwood (8:10-11), the poisoner of wells; Abaddon and Apollyon (9:11), both of which mean “destroyer” but which speak of destruction of Hebrew and Greek worlds respectively; Dragon (12:1), devourer of children; Serpent (12:9, 15),…
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