Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a brief article entitled, “The Theology of Old Testament Sacrifice," Gordon Wenham, expanding on a comment about ritual from anthropologist Monica Wilson, states: We resort to ritual when we want to express our deepest feelings. Consider the rituals used in greeting people in our society: a nod, a handshake,…
Everyone here in Cambridge is talking about sacrifice. My supervisor, Dr. John Milbank, is working on a book on gift in which he is dealing with recent literature on sacrifice. The graduate seminar in Systematics during Michaelmas Term focused on the theme of sacrifice. The first presenter was Dr. Ian…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato , virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the hocus-pocus and "presto!" the sacraments confer grace.…
When Israel came out of Egypt, she was a collection of tribes descended from the Tribe of Abraham. Tribalism drops out of history into the "world" by looking back to ancestors and by orienting to the spirits that govern the world. The world must not be manipulated, because to do…
Angels are the mediators of the Old Creation, as Eugenio Corsini has rightly pointed out in his commentary, The Apocalypse. For this reason, argues Corsini, the book of Revelation must have to do with the final end of the Old Creation order, which he associates with the work of Jesus…
Our procedure in "Through New Eyes Volume 2" thus far has been to lay out the general overview of history and its meaning as the Bible presents it. My hope is to fill this out in four major sections, corresponding to the four ages and the four testaments in the…
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Judd Owen’s Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism calls on liberals to pay attention to the foundational issues raised by liberalism’s antifoundational critics. Owen recognizes that liberalism does not propose a “neutral” theory of politics. While political regimes do not take sides in religious disputes, and thus exercise a…
Robert Jenson writes: “our enjoyment of God is that we are taken into the triune singing. Perhaps we may say we are allowed to double the parts. And here too we must insist on concreteness. That the proclamation and prayer of the church regularly bursts into beauty, indeed seems to…
John Gray ( Liberalisms ) argues that the “argument from ignorance” is at the heart of certain liberal theorizing, that it cannot hold up to scrutiny. Human knowledge is limited, and that puts constraints on political certainty. Besides, it is argued that human knowledge advances best when freedom is maximized.…
In his Out of the Wreckage , George Monbiot cites the famous 1968 article of Garrett Hardin on the "Tragedy of the Commons." In Monbiot's summary, Hardin argued that "common property will always be destroyed, because the gain that individuals make by over-exploiting it will outweigh the loss they suffer…
Heiner Ruschaupt writes: “In Greek society labor was viewed as an inescapable fate imposed by the gods. To be like the gods meant to live free from labor. In the world of the ancient Orient, labor was viewed as a burden, as slave labor for the gods, who therefore were…
Markus Rathey ( Bach's Major Vocal Works ) argues that Bach's Christmas Oratorio is a love song. Several threads of argument support this conclusion. In composing the Oratorio , Bach recycled music from earlier compositions, including the quasi-operatic Lasst uns sorgen , which renders a myth about Hercules in musical…
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