Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When God created Adam, He gave him both a vision and a responsibility. The big vision was the Dominion Mandate. The more specific calling was to cultivate and guard the Garden. God also told Adam about the gold of Havilah, which was good and beautiful (that is how the Hebrew…
After the death of Jan Hus (1369–1415), his successors, the Hussites, began to develop his thoughts on the theology and practice of the Church, particularly on= the question of the lay chalice. This time, however, it was not a question of whether this should be permitted at all—after all, this…
Imagine a friend of yours got involved in a commune, one of the really crunchy ones that does their own farming and such along with poetry nights and music and art. They’re pretty good at all this, actually. They’re using some really interesting permaculture practices at the communal farm, the…
Genesis 22, the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, is one of the more well-known typologically dissected passages in the Bible. But just for the sake of dotting “i”s, here is a quick rundown: The promised son’s appearing was awaited a very long time (Genesis 12:4; 15:2–3; 16:16; 17:17; 21:1–5;…
A Narrative Sermon on Luke 22:24-46 As Luke walked through the rain toward the corner house he was apprehensive. That surprised him. He knew all along that this was the climax of the process—that he would have to present his work to these men before it could be copied and…
In 2004, an article by Slavoj Žižek appeared in Psychoanalytic Review entitled, ‘What Can Psychoanalysis Tell Us About Cyberspace?’ One of the answers that Žižek offers is that cyberspace creates an environment within which the consumer gets to play in a world where there is no God. In his use…
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Milbank points out in detail how the sacred/secular dualism was undermined in medieval life: “monasteries were also farms . . . the church saw to the upkeep of bridges which were at once crossing places and shrines to the Virgin . . . the laity often exercised economic, charitable, and…
Milbank, summarizing and critiquing the work of Pierre Manent, suggests that “there was, from Machiavelli through Hobbes to Montesquieu and Hegel, a bias toward the primacy of evil.” Honoring good was “the everyday unexceptional reality,” but not “the normative defining one.” Instead, what was considered defining was “the exceptional suspension…
In an essay in After Modernity? Milbank describes the anthropology underwriting liberal order: “Liberalism is peculiar and unlikely because it proceeds by inventing a wholly artificial human being who has never really existed, and then pretending that we are all instances of such a species. This is the pure individual,…
INTRODUCTION Jesus is the new Elisha, forming an Israel in the midst of old Israel. That new Israel is supposed to be characterized by humility, brotherhood and brotherly correction, and forgiveness. THE TEXT “Then Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and…
Jesus says that whatever the church binds on earth is bound in heaven. The judgments of the church are not merely human judgments but communications of divine judgment. From the perspective of the Old Testament, Jesus is telling the disciples that they have entered into the status of new Adams,…
Matthew 18:15: If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. We often attack egalitarianism around here, and rightly so. God created a complex world, and things are not simply interchangeable with other things. Women are not the same…
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