Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Timon Cline wrote recently that “theonomists” didn’t run Puritan New England. 1 He is correct, in his major thesis, that the claim that “Puritanism and the natural law tradition are antithetical” is “wildly ahistorical.” Mr. Cline demonstrates that Puritans repeatedly extolled natural law. Besides the Puritan sources Mr. Cline mustered,…
The Church is the land of the walking trees. In Mark’s Gospel, the identity of Jesus is slowly and progressively revealed. Though St. Mark announces at the beginning of his narrative that Jesus Christ is “the Son of God” (1:1), this is a reality that must be spoon-fed to His…
All Scripture is of ultimate significance as the word of God, but it may be helpful to think about what makes a book (in this case, a letter) possibly unique within the canon. In this case, the “general” nature of Ephesians should stand out, but it often is not recognized…
Where do we draw the lines between what is right and wrong? This question is fundamental to civilization, fundamental to a free society. To put this question in the bluntest and most offense terms: if there is a time to kill — which Solomon says there is — whom shall…
This article was originally posted in May of 1994. We speak of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The early Church tended to speak of Him as Father, Word, and Spirit. In this short essay, I want to suggest some other ways to think of the Trinity, ways that…
Jonah’s Home The story of JONAH belongs in the book of KINGS. JONAH balances the story of the unnamed Judean prophet (1K13) in KINGS’ literary structure. Each story describes a journeying prophet that crosses land or sea to confront a wayward king. The two stories are located during the reigns…
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Drake notes that Burckhardt sees Constantine’s reign “exclusively in terms of a power struggle between Constantine and the bishops,” and shrewdly recognizes that this is in turn rooted in “an even older premise that the church became ‘worldly’ as a result of Constantine’s conversion and lost its spiritual purity.” That…
Was Constantine converted? Really, truly, deeply, irreversibly converted ? Not just converted, but converted converted? It depends on what “conversion” means. Arthur Darby Nock recognized that conversion has preconditions, but describes the actual event as a “chemical process” that involves the “addition of a catalytic agent” to produce a “sense…
Why celebrate Pentecost? Because the Spirit is the hovering wind that forms the formlessness, fills the void, brightens the darkness. Because the Spirit is the breath that gives Adam life. Because the Lord comes into the garden in the Spirit of the day to breathe out judgment to Adam and…
Dick Morris gives us another reason to be grateful for Obama’s election - he’s effectively muzzled and marginalized the Clintons. Hillary is Secretary of State, but Morris points out that “Obama has surrounded Hillary with his people and carved up her jurisdiction geographically. Former Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) is in…
William Appleman Williams’s Empire As A Way of Life is a far from perfect book, but one of the striking things is the surprisingly open way America’s founders spoke of the US as an empire. “No constitution was ever before as well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government.”…
Drake’s title - Constantine and the Bishops - says a lot. Instead of the usual “Constantine and the Church” or “Constantine and Christianity,” Drake’s title implies that Constantine had to deal with real actors with their own motivations, agendas, passions, some of whom are as imperious as the emperor, some…
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