Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for…
Naphtali Meshel observes in his new The "Grammar" of Sacrifice that scholars have been talking for decades about the "grammatical" character of ritual and sacrifice in general, but have never actually analyzed a specific ritual or sacrificial system grammatically. Some even talk about a "universal grammar" of sacrifice "even though…
Some Christians are rather breezy about the problem of evil. We shouldn't be. Do I need to remind you of the grisly beheadings that have taken place over the past few weeks? Do I need to remind you of the blood of innocents that’s been spilled in our own country?…
Have you ever been to a wedding where the heavens opened and a voice declared the couple “husband and wife”? Few of us have. Beautiful as they are, most marriages are quite mundane. Yet when Jesus talks about marriage, He describes it as something that God does: “What God has…
Jesus is the last and greatest of the Prophets. He is the Prophet that Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 18). That means He gives the final word, brings the blueprints for the final temple, speaks the final world into existence, and has complete and permanent access to the divine court, where He…
Paul stands against those who are “troubling” or “disturbing” the Galatians churches ( tarasso ; 1:7; also in 5:10). The reference seems to be two great troublers from the Old Testament. First, Achan is described as a “troubler” for the problems he causes in the aftermath of the battle at…
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E mma Tarlo's recent Entangled is a study of the global market in human hair. In a TLS review , Kathryn Hughes describes a “multi-billion-dollar global hair market.” Tarlo explores “the processes by which the greasy hairballs unpicked in Mandalay get refashioned into ‘frothy toppers' and ‘dome bowlers' in New…
“S cott Alexander” (a pseudonym) applies some common sense the media characterization of Trump as an “openly racist” candidate dedicated to courting the KKK. He estimates, for instance, that there are 3-5000 Klansman in the US. Over the course of the campaign, he estimates that at least 14,000 articles were…
I n an editorial introduction to King Lear , GK Hunter observes that the play depicts three forms of madness. First, “The Fool has a quality of savage innocence that the other two lack. . . . His stock consists in the main of songs and riddles, nonsense-rhymes and a…
A lexander Leggatt ( King Lear ) captures the oddity of King Lear by calling attention to the blunt physicality of the play: “The tortured body is a recurring image. . . . According to J.I.M. Stewart, ‘The blinding of Gloucester represents a sort of crystallizing of this element of…
N ote #1: Act 1, scene 2 of King Lear , which initiates Edmund's plots against father Gloucester and brother Edgar, is structured chiastically: A. Edmund's first soliloquy. B. Edmund with Gloucester, accusing Edgar. C. Edmund's second soliloquy. B'. Edmund with Edgar, sowing suspicion that Gloucester is suspicious of Edgar.…
Diarmaid MacCulloch starts his study of the Reformation, All Things Made New , with a sketch of the medieval world. It's a bit rosy, emphasizing the unity of medieval Europe: “The most noticeable characteristic of Western Europe in what we call the Middle Ages was its cultural and religious unity…
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