Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We've all heard it, too often to count. The Apostle Paul was a misgynistic homophobic pro-slavery authoritarian, probably a repressed homosexual himself, the first Puritan - Puritan here defined as "someone who cannot sleep if someone in the world is having fun." To call this a caricature is too generous.…
Some of our forefathers believed in reading/singing the psalms in order. Today, when the psalms are even used at all, they tend to be used randomly, though sometimes tied to a church calendar or to the pastor’s sermon. The Bible does not bind us to any particular practice, but there…
". . . and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul’s passing comment about the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness has often been treated as a bit of…
The story of Hezekiah’s illness and recovery is familiar to every child who has attended Sunday School. Informed that he would die, faithful King Hezekiah pleaded in tears for a longer life. God heard his prayers and saw his tears, and promised fifteen more years. As a sign that He…
When viewed as an allegory of biblical history, the controversial third act of Danny Boyle’s gripping sci-fi adventure is transformed from an illogical divergence into a blinding revelation. The following analysis contains spoilers for the movie “Sunshine.” The Creation Week is the elementary type that orders everything God has said…
In my last post , I told you the story of my current desire to understand philosopher D.C. Schindler’s metaphysical work. With this post, I start in to the venture. I begin by reflecting on what it is to be a thing. This matter always makes me laugh, and makes…
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John Walton insists that Genesis doesn't "attempt to address cosmology in modern terms or address modern questions. The Israelites received no revelation to update their 'scientific' understanding of the cosmos." Then too: "Throughout the entire Bible, there is not a single instance in which God revealed to Israel a science…
In Policing America's Empire , Alfred McCoy spells out the analogies between America's intervention in the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century and our invasion of Iraq at the end. He thinks the comparison is most illuminating when we highlight the differences between the two: "The spectacular capture…
In a 1975 article in the wonderfully-named journal Palimpsest , Richard H. Thomas traced the movement “from porch to patio,” showing how the change in domestic architecture both reflected and reinforced changes in social structure. The porch, he points out, facilitated conversation between the inhabitants of a house, their neighbours…
Alfred McCoy has had a lively life. While still in grad school, he testified before Congress about his discoveries of CIA alliances with drug lords in Southeast Asia. He's been subjected to surveillance and had his phone tapped. And along the way he has made America's global power a matter…
D. Valdez ( German Philhellenism ) discerned two forms of interest in Hellenism among German intellectuals of the 18th and 19th centuries: "The first, weighted toward the earlier, Homeric, and more archaic period of Greek life, celebrated a raw, tumultuous humanity, in harmony with nature, reveling in the primitive and…
Stephen Jay Gould famously offered a solution to the religion v. science conflict: Consign each to its separate corner; they belong to separate domains; they don't conflict because they don't overlap. Problem solved. Not so fast, says John Lennox ( Seven Days That Divide the World ). One problem is…
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