Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In my last essay, we saw how consumer culture has gutted the familial category necessary to understand the church. When a consumer visits a church, he expects another service-provider, such as a hospital or a restaurant. He doesn’t understand the role of men in ministry, and thus, not the role…
First time visitors to our church sometimes express their surprise that children, even the youngest, participate with their parents in the entire worship service. Many congregations created an expectation for the parents (and children) of Sunday School or Child Care being available during the entire worship service or during the…
Quantifying the Love of God “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” ~ John 3:16 This most beloved verse in all the Bible was spoken by the Savior himself to Nicodemus. As…
While The Lord’s Prayer enjoys wide recognition throughout the Church, its richness and depth may be unrealized due to a lesser familiarity with, what I will argue is, its primary inspiration: the Tabernacle. There, Christ’s intent can rightly be discerned. The Prayer’s methodological correction to the Jews and Gentiles wasn’t…
The Consumption of the Covenant Idea of the Church Last time we saw consumerism, having canalized its attitudes in our culture, shapes what the consumer sees when he or she steps into a church. Here, we’ll see how it has eviscerated the covenant and familial ideas necessary to understand the…
The ignoble Jayber Crow can stir your appetite for the noble. It’s the simplicity of a good ol’ Port William boy that builds the charm of the book. In fact, the elitists in Port William receive the harshest blows and severest outcomes, as they should. But before delving into the…
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Robert Gottleib reviews Penelope Niven’s Thornton Wilder: A Life in the January 7 issue of The New Yorker . The most interesting bits are selections from Wilder the epistolary literary and cultural critic. There’s this from a 1937 letter talking about the Astaire-Rogers film Swing Time , which Wilder saw…
At the Real Clear Religion web site, Jeffrey Weiss nails the problem with Peter Jackson’s rendition of Tolkein. Summing up the climax of the Lord of the Rings , Weiss writes: “In book and film, Frodo has heroically carried the Ring to the one spot where it can be destroyed.…
Matthew 7: What man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your…
“Unless you are converted and become like little children, you cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” Jesus says. To enter His kingdom, we must be needy, eager, dependent, watching the world with wonder. Jesus fills His kingdom with children. But the world and our own flesh makes it difficult to…
When Lear subjects himself to his daughters, his Fool remarks that he might has well pull down his britches and let his daughters whip him. He is no longer acting like a father; he has become a child in the hands of Goneril and Regan. At the end of the…
I first discovered Peter Leithart’s writings in the pages of Pro Ecclesia and First Things . Even his earliest writings are striking for their creative engagement with the Christian tradition and for their superb rhetorical power. When I turned to his books, I found a sacramental and political theologian for…
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