Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The corona virus hit Western society like a Biblical plague — almost. Biblical plagues were actually much more devastating. Still, as Peter Leithart describes the present situation, it is a judgment from God, because the disease itself together with our political solutions brought about a social situation that fits Deuteronomy’s…
“The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?” - Richard Dawkins One cannot be a Christian college president or seminary trustee (your essayist is both) without wondering if Richard Dawkins’s notorious take-down of theology…
Nearly every church that I am aware of has adopted differing practices since the recent virus scare began. Some churches continued to meet during the state lock downs, and other churches left their building empty, meeting online through various video conference technologies. Some churches have gone back to life as…
Fear is an inseparable companion of human life. We are afraid of illness and death, poverty and cataclysms, rejection and betrayal, failure and shame. We are afraid of the unknown, so in a sense we are afraid of the future and life itself. Unless we live in the illusory belief…
In the title above, I put the word “heresies” in quotation marks because I would prefer that the word “heresy” be confined to erroneous beliefs about the Trinity and the Person of Christ, rather than be used broadly to describe any view that might be considered an error. 1 At…
I’ve been trying to work out why I’m feeling existentially disconnected from CoV-19-related fears. I’m taking it seriously, but it’s not registering in any deeply personal way. Partly it’s that my routines are largely undisrupted. But as I reflect on people’s reactions I think there’s more, because a lot of…
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Gentiles contributed materials to every sanctuary in the Bible. But the character of their contributions changes. Tracing the changes displays the trajectory of redemptive history. Pharaoh contributes to the tabernacle unwillingly. Pummeled by plagues, he lets Israel go, and as they go they “plunder Egypt.” Call Pharaoh an “involuntary supplier.”…
In his Spirit of Protestantism , Robert McAfee Brown argues that catholicity was a major concern of the Reformation. From the viewpoint of the Reformers, “medieval Christendom had surrendered the notion of catholicity to a limited and distorted understanding of the Christian faith. And the Reformers, in trying to recapture…
B ruce Wilson quoted me at the Huffington Post Blog the other day. To be precise, he quoted Evangelical activist (not, as Wilson says, pastor ) David Lane quoting me, without attributing the quote to me. That’s OK by me. I don’t mind not being quoted in an article with…
You’d think we were living in Jericho, what with all the talk of walls falling down. The Berlin wall is down. Europe has no more borders. Technology ignores the political map of the world. Not to mention all the conceptual boundaries that are being breached. And that’s a good thing,…
In his forthcoming translation of The Writings, Strong As Death Is Love , Robert Alter argues that the writings are late. We know this because of the type of Hebrew that these books use: “Biblical Hebrew, like any language, changed through time. The temporal distance between the sundry strands of…
It’s an old saw, but is it possible to read Augustine’s description of the corruptions of the Roman Republic ( City of God , Book 2) without a wince (or a wink) of recognition? “Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it nourish and abound in resources; let…
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