Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When I wrote my commentary on Ecclesiastes A Table in the Mist I took Eccl. 11:1-2 as a reference to the risk of international trade. It sure did seem to me like a reference to Solomon’s risky trade with other nations. Israel exported grain (bread) and Solomon’s ships returned to…
When we read an alphabetical psalm in English, we miss the fact that each verse begins with a new letter of the Hebrew alphabet. I have found one way to get around this, which is for the leader to announce something relevant about each letter before reading his half of…
How does the Lord’s Supper proclaim the death of Jesus until He comes? (1 Corinthians 11:26). Historically, liturgists have attempted to locate some act in the rite of the Supper that corresponds to the death of Jesus: the fraction (breaking of bread), or the fact that bread and wine are…
These notes are posted here by request. We all now live in the age of slob worship thanks to the “sixties.” I never experienced sitting for prayer until 20 years ago. Jesus was unhappy when His disciples could not watch and pray for one hour. Today’s slob Christians complain if…
On September 11, 2001, Jesus brought judgment upon the United States of America. Following His normal procedure, He used an even more evil force to do it (Habakkuk 1-3). The warning Jesus gives throughout the Bible to those He uses to punish others is that they need to repent, or…
Because of Donald Trump, the “Birther” issue is heating up. It is not going away, and is only part of a larger cluster of issues in regard to the President. Virtually all of the relevant documents concerning who he is and where he has been, have been suppressed, at great…
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How can we live together when we disagree in the midst of our deepest differences? asked Os Guinness in his 2008 The Case for Civility . In a month that has seen violent clashes across the US, his question is more relevant now than when he wrote the book. The…
"What is a place ?" asks Massimo Cacciari in his contribution to The Intelligence of Place . To answer, he turns to Aristotle, who claimed that "all suppose that things which exist are somewhere." Fair enough, but what does that mean? Aristotle has some difficulty: "Entities are characterized by their…
The Paris Review published an excerpt from Jeff Nagy's forthcoming book on Degas and His Model . Written by one Alice Michel, and purportedly based on a first-person account from one of the painter's models, named Pauline, the account was first published in 1919 in Mercure de France. Nagy thinks…
David Nelson and Chad Raith (both friends of mine) offer a concise, lucid guide for those perplexed by Ecumenism . After an opening chapter defining ecumenism, the book traces the history of the ecumenical movement from its origins in the early twentieth century through the epochal shifts of the 1960s…
A report published in Social Forces examines the ripple effects of divorce. Instead of individualistically tracking the effects of divorce on the divorced couple, examining the costs and benefits of divorce, or, at most on the rest of the family, the study summarizes a social network analysis of divorce: What…
In discussing the rise of "mysteriological liturgical piety" in the fourth century, Alexander Schmemann ( Introduction to Liturgical Theology ) emphasizes the increasing pomp and ceremony of the liturgy. Orthodox liturgist though he is, Schmemann doesn't approve the development, as it emphasizes "exterior" rather than "interior" solemnity. "Exterior solemnity," he…
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