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…
Showing page 67 of 309
Showing page 31 of 43
Matthew Levering’s Predestination is, like everything he writes, clear, thorough, judicious, rich, biblically and historically informed. He starts with the church fathers and takes the story to the present worries (from David Hart among others) that predestination endangers the innocence of God. Levering recognizes the limits of patristic treatments of…
In Book 1 of the City of God , Augustine responds to critics who pointed out that Christians and pagans, good and bad people, suffered equally in the destruction of Rome. As he summarizes the argument at the beginning of Book 2, he wrote to “relieve the anxieties which disturb…
Massimo Montanari claims in his Medieval Tastes that medieval tastes and customs regarding food were changed by two revolutions. One involves the discovery of new foods from the new world. Think, for instance, of “the impact of the tomato on Mediterranean cooking or the potato on the continental diet, not…
Christopher B. Hays’s Hidden Riches is a well-organized, comprehensive compilation of Ancient Near Eastern sources - creation stories, flood stories, legal documents. It is a “bibliocentric” collection, attempting to draw out similarities and differences between biblical and other ANE documents. Hays begins the book with an overview of the comparative…
The Book of Revelation has fascinated Christians for two millennia, but it is more discussed than understood. In the Easter Term intensive course at Theopolis, James Jordan and I will present a coherent overview of the book that emphasizes its historical setting in the first century, explains its Bible-saturated imagery…
The Prodigal Son parable (Luke 15) has been a favorite of liberal theologians for a couple of centuries. It seems to be a parable designed for liberal sensibilities: An indulgent, accepting Father; forgiveness extended without a cross; a surly older brother who might represent the “conservative” face of religion who…
Showing page 473 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
