Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Jamie Soles is the reason I know my way around a guitar. When my guitar teacher put the sheet music for Eine Kleine Nachtmusick in my fourteen-year-old hands, I balked. He gave me “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” I learned half of it. At home, I ignored my teacher’s instructions and tugged…
This is a tough era for mothers. Regard for mothers, while it is always booming in some circles, is decidedly lacking in the prevailing winds of the milieu. In high demand by contrast is contribution to the work force, being a consumer, and basic economic survival, often as a solitary…
After the dark quiet of the year’s beginning, I return now to pick up the threads of my reflection on integration. This is my own personal inquiry, and for me it is no academic exercise but rather the forefront of my personal quest for the real. My hope is that…
The chiastic structure of The Hobbit we considered in the previous essay is highly suggestive of what might lie in store for The Lord of the Rings saga. It is undoubtedly the case that J. R. R. Tolkien was a literary craftsman. It may even be the case he is…
Structure plays an important part of any literary work, whether poetry or prose. It adds to the beauty and depth of the work and allows insight to be gained about what the author is trying to communicate. The question that concerns us here is whether or not there exists an…
Can we learn to communicate from an outside intelligence? Spoiler Alert! If you have not yet seen the movie, this article may provide you with a great deal more information than you wished to know at this point. Since the 1999 film The Matrix received careful scrutiny on many fronts…
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Jaime Waters has written a book-length study of Threshing Floors in Ancient Israel . She summarizes the archaeological data regarding threshing floors, and discusses ancient agriculture, but her focus is on the theological dimensions of threshing: “in the minds of biblical writers, threshing floors served purposes beyond their agricultural functionality.”…
John Ralston Saul's Voltaire's Bastards is about Voltaire. He turned the tools of irony and ridicule he learned to use from Jonathan Swift during an English exile, “into unbeatable populist weapons.” Criticisms of Voltaire from professional philosophers don't really touch him; he didn't want to construct a philosophy but to…
Chanon Ross ( Gifts Glittering and Poisoned ) offers this insightful description of the way this works in a trip to the mall: “When a consumer enters the shopping mall, her senses are engaged by a panoply of stimuli designed to intoxicate. Images, music, scents, and products swirl together in…
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass.” Flesh is…
How long, O Lord, Judge of the earth, How long shall the wicked exult? They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; All who do wickedness vaunt themselves. They crush your people, Lord, And afflict Your heritage. They slay the widow and the sojourner, And murder the fatherless. They say, “The…
In his fascinating Gifts Glittering and Poisoned , Charon Ross summarizes John Milbank's claim that forgiveness is an ecstatic act. Forgiveness, Milbank says ( Being Reconciled ), seeks “ontological harmony.” Forgiveness is never merely “‘disinterested benevolence' but involves the forgiver abandoning himself and severing himself from himself for the sake…
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