Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I grew up on the north side of Chicago. My parents were evangelicals and I was raised in the faith. I graduated from a large public high school in which practicing Christians were very few and very far between (though nominal Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox were in abundance), which…
During the recent round table discussion on the future of Protestantism , Peter Leithart advocated a much greater degree of unity in the Church than we presently enjoy. Another participant in the discussion wondered aloud how Leithart's vision would be different from the ministerial associations that presently exist in many…
"But he, wanting to justify himself, said, 'And who is my neighbor?' And Jesus said to him, 'First, your neighbors are the people in your church, then the ones with whom you enjoy greatest doctrinal or ecclesiastical commonality, then those with whom you enjoy less commonality.'" -Said Jesus... never Since…
A number of years ago, I came across something in the Puritan Thomas Goodwin in regard to John 17:22. Goodwin points out that Jesus prays that they (the disciples) might be given the glory of the Father as a means to an end. The end is unity, and the means…
In her prize-winning book, Gilead , Marilynne Robinson uses the pastoral settings of Iowa to challenge ministers to live up to their high callings. One of the most powerful themes in the novel is the pastor’s power to “bless.” The tension in the novel builds as we watch Rev. Ames…
One of the few glaring errors of the Protestant Reformers was the failure to welcome children back to the Lord's Table. Something that seems to go along with this was the exclusion of other kinds of Christians, primarily Roman Catholics, from Holy Communion in Protestant churches. Exclusion of Roman Catholics…
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Did the Greeks sacrifice all the animals they ate? Gunnel Ekroth (“Meat in ancient Greece”) says No, though he also says that most of the meat they ate was “sacred,” even if not “sacrificial.” The distinction of the two is crucial. Drawing mainly from osteological evidence to supplement that from…
Gunnel Ekroth considers the important role that decisions by lot played in Greek society: “This was not an infrequent phenomenon in Greek society and was encountered not only at sacrifices, but also when land was parcelled out at colonial undertakings as well as at the selection of political magistrates. The…
In a TLS review of Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files , Edward Luttwak traces things back to dynamics within the post-9/11 intelligence bureaucracy. In Luttwak’s telling, it’s a case study of bureaucratic expansion. He argues that “Only a few hundred were really justified of the many thousands employed to service…
Joan Cadden’s Nothing Natural is Shameful is many things: A careful study of the medieval reception and use of various Aristotelian texts; an analysis of medieval natural philosophy and ethics and the relation between the two; a contribution to research about Western views of sodomy; a study of medieval notions…
Pastor Arthur Kay offers these thoughts on the symbolism of Palm Sunday: “Palms are associated with covering clouds (Feast of Booths, Leviticus 23:40). They are also associated with the nations (Exodus 15:27; Revelation 7:9). Therefore, on Palm Sunday, Jesus is already coming on the clouds – He rides on palm…
No other mythology, writes Eva Kuels in The Reign of the Phallus , gives rape a more prominent role than that of Greece (49). In our expurgated handbooks of mythology, it’s called “dalliance” or somesuch, but Kuels argues that the artifacts show that what’s happening is rape. In most cases,…
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