Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I was still a high school student the first time I read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but I will never forget the powerful impact the book had on me. Of course, as a second year student, I did not fully digest the book. In spite of subsequent readings, I…
Crises force questions of identity. Identities may remain assumed until some event, or series of events, challenge what may have been taken for granted. The search for identity is an anxious one precisely because it tends to happen in times of upheaval and uncertainty. In his recent book, Orthoxox Anglican…
Peter Leithart recently wrote a fascinating short piece about the Half Shekel Temple Tax as an atonement. Leithart argues three main points. First that the Sanctuary Shekel was heavier, i.e., more valuable than the everyday shekel. Second, he offers some analysis about the order of magnitude of the purchasing power…
There is no denial from the careful reader that 1 Samuel 24 and 26 are telling the same story. Perhaps we should say, virtually the same story. But that the stories are cut from the same cloth is undeniable. What we have over these three chapters—1 Samuel 24-26—is a very…
In his novel That Hideous Strength , C.S. Lewis is able to masterfully illustrate in narrative form so many of his insights about the subversive dangers of Leftist political dogma to Christian civilization. Perceptive essays from Lewis like “The Abolition of Man” and “The Inner Ring” are fleshed out in…
At a very practical level, the Evangelical Church has been injected with counterfeit spiritualities. We are a people looking for a city, whose builder may only be in office for four years. Our temptation to veer to the side of the temporal is striking in our day, especially as the…
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Judd Owen’s Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism calls on liberals to pay attention to the foundational issues raised by liberalism’s antifoundational critics. Owen recognizes that liberalism does not propose a “neutral” theory of politics. While political regimes do not take sides in religious disputes, and thus exercise a…
Robert Jenson writes: “our enjoyment of God is that we are taken into the triune singing. Perhaps we may say we are allowed to double the parts. And here too we must insist on concreteness. That the proclamation and prayer of the church regularly bursts into beauty, indeed seems to…
John Gray ( Liberalisms ) argues that the “argument from ignorance” is at the heart of certain liberal theorizing, that it cannot hold up to scrutiny. Human knowledge is limited, and that puts constraints on political certainty. Besides, it is argued that human knowledge advances best when freedom is maximized.…
In his Out of the Wreckage , George Monbiot cites the famous 1968 article of Garrett Hardin on the "Tragedy of the Commons." In Monbiot's summary, Hardin argued that "common property will always be destroyed, because the gain that individuals make by over-exploiting it will outweigh the loss they suffer…
Heiner Ruschaupt writes: “In Greek society labor was viewed as an inescapable fate imposed by the gods. To be like the gods meant to live free from labor. In the world of the ancient Orient, labor was viewed as a burden, as slave labor for the gods, who therefore were…
Markus Rathey ( Bach's Major Vocal Works ) argues that Bach's Christmas Oratorio is a love song. Several threads of argument support this conclusion. In composing the Oratorio , Bach recycled music from earlier compositions, including the quasi-operatic Lasst uns sorgen , which renders a myth about Hercules in musical…
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