Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I live in an area where Mardi Gras is in full swing, and I can remember from my upbringing that Fat Tuesday was a last ditch effort at debauchery before the pseudo-spiritual practice of “giving something up for Lent” really began. In my youth I would give up some kind…
Part 1: Observations from the Texts (Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22, Luke 5:33-39) The precipitating context for the new wine/old wineskins discussion is people asking Jesus why His disciples did not fast. His immediate answer is that you can’t get the friends of the groom to fast at the bachelor party…
Simply, “progress” means to move forward. In that sense, a slug can progress from one end of the sidewalk to the other. But for us in twenty-first century America, progress means something else. For us, it is almost a synonym for goodness. The slug can only “progress” if the other…
I have the privilege of being able to counsel a lot of women who are seeking abortions. I can tell you that the majority of them are seeking to end their pregnancies not because they feel like it would be a fun thing to do, but because they are scared…
Last night, along with a few online friends, I watched this debate on the meaning of life between William Lane Craig, Rebecca Goldstein, and Jordan Peterson, hosted by Wycliffe College. While watching it, and reflecting upon Peterson’s work more generally (about which I’ve written in the past ), I was…
I’m glad to have been invited to contribute regularly to the Theopolis Institute website. Thank you, readers, for welcoming and joining what I hope will be a venture of integration. Integration itself is what I want to explore. And for me personally, this is the shape of my current integrative…
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Unpacking her patrilineal account of sacrifice, Nancy Jay notes offhandedly that the genealogy of Genesis 4-5 is “perfectly patrilineal. No women are named; wives are not even mentioned” ( Throughout Your Generations Forever , 96). It’s true. Women are pretty much invisible after Eve is named “Living one” and bears…
In a brilliant brief discussion of the Reformation revision of Christian sacramental theology, Philippe Buc ( Dangers of Ritual ) writes: “The Reformation’s success in sixteenth-century Europe can be explained partly by the skill with which its propagandists mustered against the Roman Church notions basic to the medieval definition of…
In his Inquiry into Modes of Existence , Bruno Latour imagines an anthropologist doing field work among the tribe of Science in their natural habitat, the lab. She has been told that the Modern world is separated into interrelated but distinct domains: “Law, Science, Politics, Religion, The Economy.” These must…
Bruno Latour ( An Inquiry into Modes of Existence ) says that “the entire modern experience has stood up against living under the control of an indisputable metadispatcher. No one can make us believe the contrary: we know that it is false ” (469). Except when it comes to economy.…
Paul continues to use the language of purity and impurity, but it seems radically altered in his hands. Foods are not unclean; there is no hint that bodily conditions (menstruation, childbirth, seminal emissions) cause uncleanness. Indeed, all things are pure (Romans 14:20). But Paul’s logic is a bit more complicated…
Johann Georg Hamann, the devout German philosopher of the Enlightenment age, argues that “a kind of ‘faith’ is involved in everyday life when we recognize the real.” In several places, Hamann attributed this insight to Hume. “The reasonings of a Hume ,” he wrote, “may be convincing and their refutations…
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