Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Who were the company of singers who sang in the Temple built by Solomon? I think many people might answer “the Levitical singers.” That is not correct, because the Levites were not allowed inside the Temple; only the priests were. The Levitical choir and orchestra performed for Yahweh outside the…
Dear Congregation, Social media is awash with rants for and against the ruling from the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) yesterday regarding homosexual marriage ( Obergefell v. Hodges ). My contribution on Facebook was simply to quote relevant sections of the dissents written by the four judges in the minority. Even though…
After the Civil War, the hobbled nation and fractured races looked about for leadership; animosity was high and envy was crouching at the door. Booker Taliaferro Washington, up from slavery, surveyed the rising tension and injustice, foreseeing civil unrest and chafing inequalities, eschewed, remarkably, a legislative remedy and advised a…
The ruling on Obergefell v. Hodges “came down” on Friday morning, June 26, 2015, like a bolt from Zeus. Many who refuse to bow to the dictates of our Olympians will write trenchant legal, theological, and cultural/political analyses of the court’s ruling. What I’m comfortable contributing to the historical record,…
Orthodox Christianity has lost all cultural potency in the U.S. No one defending traditional marriage before the court dared raise the fundamental question: Who creates marriage, God or the state? Theology has no public standing, no persuasive force in the culture at large. Obergefell is another nail in the coffin…
One will rarely come upon a classical allusion in a Robert Frost poem. His poetic scheme was to follow the speaking patterns of common folk, to use their words and images to achieve his point. Despite this simplicity, there is a depth and richness to his poetry that can be…
Showing page 150 of 309
Showing page 35 of 43
Daniel Barber ( Modern Theology ) notes that “particularity cannot be reduced to universality. Therefore we have a philosophical reason for approaching Jesus through particularity: sufficient reason, when conceived as universality, is insufficient; causal frameworks cannot negotiate sufficiently with elements of chance and contingency; ‘universality’ cannot be thought of as…
Andrew Bacevich ( The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War ) writes, “Americans in our time have fallen prey to militarism, manifesting itself in a romanticized view of soldiers, a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness, and outsized expectations regarding the…
Howe, again, points out that the most obvious “imperial” project in US history is the one we take most for granted, the conquest of the American continent: “it is the internal expansion of the continental USA, across the intervening hundred years, which evokes the most direct parallels with empire-building elsewhere.…
Stephen Howe ( Empire: A Very Short Introduction ) admits that nationalists in the Austro-Hungarian empire “scorned it as the ‘prison-house of nations,” and that to the intellectuals of Vienna, the empire was “a senile absurdity.” Still, “the very existence of those nationalist, cultural, and intellectual movements, able to express…
Gerald Schlabach notes that critiques of Constantinianism pose temptations of various sorts, just as Constantinianism itself does. Insofar as such critiques posit a “fall” for the church, “they tend to be dysfunctional - not just for ecumenical debate, but also for ethical discernment within those churches that historically have defined…
Travis Kroeker ( Journal of Religious Ethics , 2005) argues that Yoder is closer to Augustine than his dismissal of Augustine as a “Constantinianism” implies: “Augustine’s theological corpus is nothing if not exegetical and historical, though, of course, it is also true that Augustine freely appropriates the ‘gold and silver…
Showing page 1384 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
