Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Where do we go from here? Depending on one’s perspective, the American story can plausibly be interpreted in different ways. Looked at from past to present , we can see a great deal of continuity from medieval Christendom and the Reformation to America’s founding. The War for Independence, after all,…
Click HERE for Part 1 Civic Religion: American or Christian? We have already traced out the basic contours of the shift in America from an ecclesiocentric, theocratic social order to a secular one. Building on Locke and Hobbes, the Enlightenment accomplished an astonishing coup of Christendom. That victory for the…
Author’s Introductory Note: Engaging in broad historical interpretation as I am about to do is always risky. Necessarily, one “stylizes” history by simplifying, over generalizing, and stereotyping. But the narrative qualities of history are not simply due to the imposition of human rationality upon brute facts; rather history is always…
A. Repentance to life involves endeavoring to believe real hard that you’re saved. reject infant baptism. stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. walk with God in all the ways of his commandments. B. What is necessary so that no sinner may expect to be forgiven unless he does it? Only…
The machine works mechanically and it is flawless. Slander/libel a group of Presbyterian ministers as “Romanist” because robes and James 2 are no worse than praying to Mary or relying on purgatory to pay for unconfessed sins. Drive off anyone who disagrees. Of that number, there may be a tiny…
If we take as a starting point the Tribal / Monarchical / Empire model, we can then add to it the Late Empire Phase. The particular ‘marker sin’ of Empire is false intermarriage, which signifies pluralism and syncretism. Empires by definition are “cosmopolitan” dominated by cities, high culture, many cultures,…
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Teaching and learning never take place in no-place. They are always in an environment. The issue is always which environment and whether it is coherent with what is taught or at cross-purposes with content. Attention to the teaching environment may sound trendily modern, but it's ancient wisdom. Deuteronomy 6 records…
“The dead do not praise Yahweh, nor do any who do down into silence” (Psalm 115:17). It's a refrain in the Psalms: Death marks the end of the life of praise. The dead cannot give thanks to God. Sheol isn't just dark; it's silent. But then Revelation comes along and…
RW Southern ( Making of the Middle Ages ) sees a commonality between the romances of of the high middle ages and the theological and spiritual movements of the 11th-12th centuries. It's a shift from an epic mentality to the thought-world of romance. Southern argues that this movement is evident…
Prophets always initiate new covenants. They end one set of covenantal arrangements and bring in new ones. They are the hinges of history. Noah is a prophet who becomes an Adam in a new creation covenant. Abraham is the first man called a prophet, and is the recipient of covenant…
For medievals, allegory wasn’t simply a way of dealing with texts or a method of writing. It was science, a mode of understanding of the world as a whole. The world was a forest of symbols and allegories from which moral and theological lessons might be drawn. The great medieval…
In his 2014 study of The Royalist Revolution , Eric Nelson presents the counter-intuitive case that the American revolutionaries were not revolting against monarchy but against a legislature: “It was, indeed, a rebellion in favor of royal power” (2). Nelson elaborates: “Colonial whigs who had long been ‘slumbering under the…
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