Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I revisited Athanasius’s On the Incarnation in light of Advent this year. A particular passage struck me with a question that I hadn’t considered before. When addressing Adam’s fall, Athanasius says this: “If then there were only the offense and not the consequence of corruption, repentance would have been fine.…
There is much wisdom for kings in the first letter of Paul to the Church in Corinth. As I am preaching through this letter, this is one of the major themes that stands out. That is the theme of the reign of the Christian as we live in union with…
1 The title should not be a surprise to anyone who believes the Bible to be true. According to the Bible, any and every faith and religion that does not conform to the Gospel of Christ are not only false, but ultimately inspired by false spirits. Though Jeffrey Niehaus is…
Names are weighty things, a fact repeatedly evidenced in the biblical narrative. There are several occasions when the names mothers or fathers chose for their children, and the reasons for which the names were chosen, are given extended attention in the text. Much of Genesis 29 and 30, for instance,…
Growing up, I was crestfallen about any Christmas that fell on Sunday. Christmas on Sunday meant going to church when I’d rather lollygag around the Christmas tree in my pajamas, playing with new toys. Christmas on Sunday was a drag. If I still felt that way, I know what I’d…
Growing up in the church in Southern America, there was an oft-used category for leaders in the church. It was a category which was used to justify a variety of rules and restrictions on church leaders. Leaders were to be “above reproach” and that meant not drinking in public or…
Showing page 36 of 309
Showing page 30 of 43
Rebutting Jonathan Last’s portrait of Batman as the comic book answer to liberalism, Travis Smith (writing at the Weekly Standard site) argues that Spiderman is the better antidote to modernity: “The essential difference between Spider-Man and Batman can be detected in their styles: Spidey’s banter is full of quips and…
In his contribution to Gifts and Interests (Morality and the Meaning of Life) , Jacques Godbout suggests that the freedoms of modernity are “founded on the immediate and permanent liquidation of debt.” In the market, all debts are immediately canceled: You give me goods over the counter, I give you…
So, the prose is a overwrought, but Robert Raynolds vividly captures the giftiness of gratitude in a couple of passages in his 1961 prose-poem, In Praise of Gratitude . Returning from a visit to Mexico as a young man, he pays a visit to the woman who will become his…
In his L’ingratitude: Conversation sur notre temps (French Edition) , Alain Finkielkraut cites Roland Barthes’s inaugural lecture at the College of France: “Language, as performance of the language system, is neither reactionary nor progressive. It is simply fascist: for fascism is not the prohibition of saying things but the obligation…
Protestants are often charged with unleashing the social solvents of individualism on the world. The Reformers didn’t see things that way. In fact, they claimed to be standing for community against the corrosive individualism of the medieval Mass. Hence Calvin writes ( Institutes 4.18.7). He begins with “The Supper itself…
In a 2007 article in the Scottish Journal of Theology , Piotr Malysz challenges William Cavanaugh’s reading of Luther’s eucharistic theology. According to Cavanaugh, Luther’s theology created a dualism between “exchange” and “gift,” and turned the latter into a supernatural “intrusion” into the transactionist patterns of normal social life. Malysz…
Showing page 824 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
