Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In The Meaning of History , Nikolai Berdyaev argues that the ancient Greeks had no concept of history and no philosophy of history because their concept of God and the world did not allow for it. “They conceived the world aesthetically, as a finite and harmonious cosmos. The most representative…
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…
Genesis 3 records the terrible day when humanity fell into sin and shalom was violated. This was a moment of cosmic treason, when Adam and Eve violated their relationship with God by rebelling against His command and fell into the severe ignobility we all experience. The entrance of sin wrecked…
One of the most important contributions of twentieth-century Catholic nouvelle théologie , and of Henri de Lubac and Jean Danielou in particular, was its rehabilitation of the typological interpretation of the Bible practiced by patristic and medieval theologians. Typological interpretation assumes that events and institutions of the Old Testament present…
The Catholic News Service has reported that Pope Francis has called for the abolition of not only the death penalty, but also of life in prison. In a meeting with representatives of the International Association of Penal Law, the pontiff called for all “Christians and people of good will” to…
Each year, the United Nations designates November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon explains, “Violence against women and girls takes many forms and is widespread throughout the globe. It includes rape, domestic violence, harassment at work, abuse in school, female…
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Milbank points out in detail how the sacred/secular dualism was undermined in medieval life: “monasteries were also farms . . . the church saw to the upkeep of bridges which were at once crossing places and shrines to the Virgin . . . the laity often exercised economic, charitable, and…
Milbank, summarizing and critiquing the work of Pierre Manent, suggests that “there was, from Machiavelli through Hobbes to Montesquieu and Hegel, a bias toward the primacy of evil.” Honoring good was “the everyday unexceptional reality,” but not “the normative defining one.” Instead, what was considered defining was “the exceptional suspension…
In an essay in After Modernity? Milbank describes the anthropology underwriting liberal order: “Liberalism is peculiar and unlikely because it proceeds by inventing a wholly artificial human being who has never really existed, and then pretending that we are all instances of such a species. This is the pure individual,…
INTRODUCTION Jesus is the new Elisha, forming an Israel in the midst of old Israel. That new Israel is supposed to be characterized by humility, brotherhood and brotherly correction, and forgiveness. THE TEXT “Then Peter came to Him and said, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and…
Jesus says that whatever the church binds on earth is bound in heaven. The judgments of the church are not merely human judgments but communications of divine judgment. From the perspective of the Old Testament, Jesus is telling the disciples that they have entered into the status of new Adams,…
Matthew 18:15: If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. We often attack egalitarianism around here, and rightly so. God created a complex world, and things are not simply interchangeable with other things. Women are not the same…
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