Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Meanings of Remembrance Both Luke’s account of the upper room (Luke 22:14–23) and Paul’s recounting in 1 Corinthians 11:23–25 record Jesus’ words that the Supper in the distribution of bread: “do this in remembrance of me” (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν). 1 1 Corinthians 11:25 repeats the words in…
Genesis is a story of brotherly violence. Cain kills Abel. Jacob flees from Esau, his brother, to live with Laban, his mother’s brother, and ends up in a conflict with him too. Joseph’s brothers assault him, sell him away as a slave, and fake his death. All of this frames…
America is like a secular Holy Roman Empire. Contrary to dissidents who expect a collapse of the federal government, the implosion of the fiat dollar, or a national divorce into Jesusland and the United States of Canada, America will persist. Whether as a world hegemon or regional superpower, there is…
Many readers of the New Testament will, at some point or other, be troubled by the question of why Jesus’ earthly ministry did not address the Roman occupation. Perhaps as a child in Sunday school you were taught that the Jews were expecting a military deliverer, and that the form…
In a recent tweet , which he later expanded into a Substack post , Aaron Renn wrote about the importance of ‘picking the right ladders to climb’. One of our most critical life decisions, Renn argues, is that of choosing the right ‘status hierarchies’ to which we will commit ourselves;…
The Third Use of the Created Word “Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” Those words are reflexive for almost any Anglican. Repeated nine times weekly at least during Lent and Advent if not year round, they are said between 54 and 468 times…
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1 Chronicles 23:24-27 is arranged chiastically: A. Levites numbered from 20 years and up. B. David said. C. Yahweh rests and dwells. C'. Levites no longer carry tent and implements. B'. Words of David. A'. Levites numbered from 20 years and up. C' is disputable, but the structure nearly forces…
O ne paragraph illustrates both the reasons I admire Christian Wiman's 2013 searingly honest My Bright Abyss , and the reasons I find the book frustrating to the point of irritation. A poet and erstwhile editor of Poetry , Wiman came to Christianity as an adult in the midst of…
T he authors of Ritual and its Consequences (104–6) note a contrast between civilizations that are bound by authoritative rituals and those that are not. The latter are deeply concerned with sincerity: “ Civilizations or movements with a diminished concern for ritual have an overwhelming concern with sincerity, which we…
“P riestcraft” was one of the charges regularly lodged by skeptics against clergy and theologians in early modern Europe. It connoted obscurantism, deception, manipulation of popular opinion. It connoted everything wrong with established Christianity, especially in its more catholic manifestations. Not all the charges of “priestcraft” were directed at clergy.…
O ne of the virtues of Anthony J. Carroll's Protestant Modernity is his effort to put flesh on the bony term “secularization,” often batted about in an airily sociological fashion. On-the-ground secularization is easiest to spot in Revolutionary France, when institutions and personnel and property and records were removed from…
K eith G. Meador devotes his contribution to The Secular Revolution to an analysis of the therapeutic takeover of American Protestantism. He focuses on the role of the Christian Century under the editorship of Charles Clayton Morrison, who used the magazine to advance a “scientific” and simplified Christianity supposedly fit…
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