Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the Bible, all the world is a stage, but like the Tabernacle, that stage moves around a lot. David’s defeat of Goliath can only be fully understood as liturgy fulfilled in history. Liturgy, as a sacrifice of praise, is the step-by-step process of resolving a conflict. It relinquishes all…
Aristotle isn’t fundamentally wrong about friendship, nor is the long tradition that follows him. But you might not gather that by reading some of the more pointed critics of the classical conception of friendship. I think, however, that the classical view is not only viable but taken up and fulfilled…
#13 in Theopolis Papers, Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World It is time for me to “cast off” integration, the way a knitter removes a completed scarf from the needles. I want to bring my quest concerning integration to a decent closure, though my happy quest for reality continues. With…
Below are some notes on a particular sub-theme of Daniel 3, namely the downfall of Babylon’s liturgy. First up, a few words on our text’s literary construction. One of the most conspicuous features of Dan. 3 is its author’s love of lists . Personnel are listed (vs. 2, 3, 27),…
Few things in Scripture, few things in the Christian life, are more familiar than the Lord’s Prayer. Sunday after Sunday, we pray these words together with our brothers and sisters. At home, alone or with our families, we pray this prayer daily, as Jesus taught us (Luke 11:2: “When you…
At the 2019 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, the denominational delegates considered a number of official overtures (requests for action from the regional parts of the denomination) relating to issues of gender and sexuality. The PCA is conservative. As evidence of this, the assembly passed a resolution…
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Yoder argues that from the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Jews developed a proto-“free church” model of community life. True in some respects. Jews didn’t have their own polity. But I’ve got doubts if that’s a fair characterization of Jews in and after the exile. Why? The Bible for…
Maximilian of Tebessa is often cited as an example of early Christian pacifism. When Roman officials pressured him to accept a military seal and swear the sacramentum by reminding him that other Christians served without qualms, he still refued, saying “They know what is expedient for them; but I am…
Warwick Ball’s Rome in the East is a treasure trove. Instead of telling the story of Rome from an occidental standpoint, he goes east and looks back. What does Roman history look like from Arabia, Syria, Edessa, India? One of his remarkable conclusions is that before the triumph of the…
In reaction to the lax respectability of the majority church, many hardy souls retreated to the desert or the frontier. So the story goes. Only the monastery was another form of cultural conformity. RA Markus ( The End of Ancient Christianity ) says that “the ideal of the philosophical life…
Florence Dupont points out in her Daily Life in Ancient Rome that in Latin enemy ( hostis ) andguest ( hospes ) “were formed from the same root, which had the meaning ‘the other who is similar to you.’”
In her study of Roman gladiatorial combat and arenas ( Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power ) Alison Futrell describes the Phoenician practice of human sacrifice transplanted to Carthage: “The young victim was placed in the arms of the bronze image of Ba’al Hammon, arms that sloped…
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