Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When a certain Samaritan village refused Jesus’ attempt to visit, James and John asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven upon it. The allusion to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is evident, but, as the story shows, James’ and John’s thinking was entirely warped. Jesus rebuked…
In the first part of this essay, I considered paideia (formation)and mimesis (imitation) in the context of Aristotle’s virtue ethics and that of the New Testament. The overall concern is to realize how relevant is Aristotle’s ethics both to diagnosing our current malaise and to enculturing our children, though we…
In these posts I am inviting you into my philosophical reflection about integration , the absence of which we feel palpably in our fragmented world. My hope is for us to understand it more deeply, and to be ourselves reintegrated in the process. At this point in this extended inquiry…
It’s hard to imagine someone, centuries from now, mistaking our culture for a moral highpoint in the history of the West. Increasingly the news is dominated by school shootings, abusive policing, sexploitation of women, and increasing rates of suicide, addiction, and divorce. In response, the Left calls for regulations, surveillance,…
“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” (Ps. 34:17-18) God is listening. He is listening when we ask Him for financial provision,…
The allusions to Mt. Sinai in the transfiguration story point to Jesus as a new Moses and even more as Yahweh, the God who met Moses and Elijah on the mountain. The fact that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah spoke of Jesus’ “exodus” suggests that the mountain of transfiguration was intended…
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Rational people, people of good will and good sense, will differ about the wisdom of the Marriage Pledge written by Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz and endorsed by Rusty Reno this week. They have already begun to differ. A defense of the Pledge would go something like this: Churches that…
In his remarkable Acquittal by Resurrection , Markus Barth argues that the judgment by which God justifies “cannot be a paradox or a wanton and arbitrary decision.” Barth lays out three conditions that such a judgment must fulfill if it is to be considered righteous: It must have “a solid…
Timothy Larson of Wheaton has written a number of illuminating, witty books. His latest, The Slain God , examines a neglected chapter in the story of faith-and-modernity, the interaction of anthropology and Christian faith during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Larsen’s book is biographically organized, with a chapter each on…
You know how the curtain parts at the beginning of a play, and you see a new scene, with characters and sets and incidents that had remained hidden up til then? Church last week was like that. Except the curtain was made up of all the things I thought were…
1 Kings begins with a brief story about David, aging and cold, unable to stay warm at night. It’s pathetic, and also thematic, because throughout 1-2 Kings, a king’s health symbolizes the health of his kingdom. But the roots of the story go deeper. When God first created Adam, he…
John’s encounter with the strong angel from heaven is described with a chiasm, and that structure helps solve a puzzle in the passage: a. Strong angel descends from heaven and straddles land and sea, 10:1-2. b. He cries and thunder speaks; what the thunder says is sealed, 10:3-4. c. Oath…
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