Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
[This essay was originally published in 1988. Given the situation that our new national socialists are getting the world into, I thought it might be useful to reprint it here. – JBJordan] The Bible has quite a bit to say about gold, silver, and precious stones, and the Bible always…
I wrote this elsewhere and was encouraged to put it here. It is a comment on what a pastor is. Today, this is not very well understood, and God’s people suffer because of it. There are four professions: medicine, education, law, and religion. Each of these, when done at a…
James Jordan recently pointed out in private conversation how appropriate it is, in John’s Gospel, that Nicodemus is present both to ask Jesus about being born again, and to see Jesus re-enter the womb of the mother. Nicodemus rhetorically asks, “How can a man be born when he is old?…
This is a problematic and much discussed passage. I’ve been discussing it in another forum, and have decided to move it here and present some very preliminary observations about it. One large question is this: Who is the speaker here and what is his situation? Traditionally, the speaker is seen…
1. The current issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction includes a good fantasy novella by John C. Wright, who since his conversion has been writing Christianly. This is a fine fantasy with nods to C. S. Lewis and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and probably Gene Wolfe as well.…
“It is an experience of our days that the spoken name of Jesus alone exercises an unforeseen power; and the effort which it cost to speak this name is perhaps connected to some faint apprehension of the power which is inherent within it. Wherever the name of Jesus Christ is…
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John Cuddihy ( No Offense , 31-43) gives an illuminating and damning analysis of Reinhold Niebuhr's transformation from the son of a Missouri Lutheran pastor to the famous urbane public theologian. For Cuddihy, the interest of the account is not merely in Niebuhr's own transformation but in the way his…
Stephen Warner argues that in analyzing American religion and culture, we need to go beyond the contrast of assimilation v. multiculturalism, and beyond the simple opposition of the “culture war.” He suggests that the category of mestizaje , mixing, is more fruitful. In particular, he briefly explores the historical reasons…
The first gift promised to faithful members of the seven Asian churches is access to the tree of life in Paradise (Revelation 2:7). that is one of the last things mentioned in John's vision of new Jerusalem (22:1-2, 14). The first thing promised is the last delivered. That inversion continues…
Robert Wuthnow ( Rough Country ) observes that “symbolic boundaries having to do with religion do in fact include differences in patterns of social relationships. Homophily appears in social networks to some extend such that Catholics are more likely to include fellow Catholics among their networks of close friends than…
In his classic 1978 study of civil religion, No Offense , the late John Cuddihy affirms Talcott Parsons's view that civil society or civic culture isn't post-Christian but intensely Christianized. It is “a genuine, progressive stage in the further institutionalization of Christian values into the social structures and institutions (political,…
Ross Douthat comments on why so many of his fellow journalists are turning away from the outrageous organ trade of Planned Parenthood: “it’s precisely a fetus’s humanity that makes its organs valuable, and the experience of recognizing one’s own children, on the ultrasound monitor and after, as something more than…
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