Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Whatever else the 2016 Presidential cycle has accomplished, it has brought the chasm between nationalism and globalism into sharp relief. Many see this divide as the issue of the campaign (Robert Merry) or of the century (Pat Buchanan). It seems to be a choice we have to make. Christians must…
Salvation is a gift. The righteousness of justification (Romans 5:17) and eternal life (Romans 6:23) are gifts freely offered. According to Risto Saarinen ( God and the Gift ), “God is directly called the giver 104 times [in Scripture], of which 42 are in John’s Gospel and John’s Letters. In…
In the last 40 odd years of studying the Bible, I have read more essays and commentaries on Deuteronomy 6:4 than I can recall. I have also more than twice changed my view on what should be the correct translation of Israel’s central confession. What is so complicated? After the…
Satan is currently bound from gathering the nations in kingly rebellion so that Jesus might gather them in priestly unity. Everything which Scripture records for us, no matter how mundane or mysterious, exists as part of a process of growth to maturity. This transformation is achieved through relationships established by…
God’s people are a missionary people, and this is not true only of the New Testament church. God called Abraham to bless the Gentiles through him, and one of Israel’s recurring sins was her failure to carry out this mission. Israel was supposed evoke praise from the Gentiles, but instead…
Are you ready for the New Year? Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever He takes you this year? Are you read to follow Him into the garden? Are you ready to stay at His side to be arrested, interrogated, tortured, crucified, buried? Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever…
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T he book of Acts ends with a sailor's yarn. Paul has appealed to Caesar, and is sailing toward Italy when the ship hits a squall. Luke gives a detailed account of the efforts to save the ship and the final shipwreck at Malta, during which all 276 people on…
I n her essay in Christianity, Democracy, and the Shadow of Constantine , Mary Doak unpacks some features of a Trinitarian, communion-oriented political theology. She doesn't, however, think that communio ecclesiology implies pacificism, and, as a feminist theologian, she worries that communio can be used to blunt the force of…
D an Piepenbring comments briefly in The Paris Review on a bizarre fashion trend of the eighteenth century: “During Marie Antoinette’s time, for instance, there was a brief craze for caca-dauphin , a shade of brown that resembled the color of the new prince Louis-Joseph’s soiled diapers. In the most…
R eflecting on the retirement of actor Daniel Day-Lewis at Variety , Owen Gleiberman suggests that “What retired . . . is something that’s waning in the culture: the belief in acting as a highly sculpted soul transplant—as the mystical spirit of inhabitation.” He fills out the point by situating…
M y son Woelke sent this along, from Louis Menand: The real basis for the metaphor of voice in writing is not speaking. It is singing. You cannot know a singer from her speech, and although ‘natural phrasing' and ‘from the heart' are prized attributes of song, actually singing that…
I n the course of reviewing Philippe Desan's Montaigne: A Life , Jane Kramer speculates on the fraught question of Montaigne's influence on Shakespeare. Such influence is historically plausible: “Although Florio’s 1603 effort was the first English rendering of Montaigne’s essays to appear in book form, they had certainly been…
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