Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I was still a high school student the first time I read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but I will never forget the powerful impact the book had on me. Of course, as a second year student, I did not fully digest the book. In spite of subsequent readings, I…
Crises force questions of identity. Identities may remain assumed until some event, or series of events, challenge what may have been taken for granted. The search for identity is an anxious one precisely because it tends to happen in times of upheaval and uncertainty. In his recent book, Orthoxox Anglican…
Peter Leithart recently wrote a fascinating short piece about the Half Shekel Temple Tax as an atonement. Leithart argues three main points. First that the Sanctuary Shekel was heavier, i.e., more valuable than the everyday shekel. Second, he offers some analysis about the order of magnitude of the purchasing power…
There is no denial from the careful reader that 1 Samuel 24 and 26 are telling the same story. Perhaps we should say, virtually the same story. But that the stories are cut from the same cloth is undeniable. What we have over these three chapters—1 Samuel 24-26—is a very…
In his novel That Hideous Strength , C.S. Lewis is able to masterfully illustrate in narrative form so many of his insights about the subversive dangers of Leftist political dogma to Christian civilization. Perceptive essays from Lewis like “The Abolition of Man” and “The Inner Ring” are fleshed out in…
At a very practical level, the Evangelical Church has been injected with counterfeit spiritualities. We are a people looking for a city, whose builder may only be in office for four years. Our temptation to veer to the side of the temporal is striking in our day, especially as the…
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The exhortation from September 7, 2003: A Pharisee and a publican went to the doctor, and both learned that they needed surgery. The publican agreed to the surgery, and, after a long and painful recovery, regained his health. The Pharisee also agreed to the surgery, but at the last moment…
In Luke 5, the friends of the paralytic cannot get him to Jesus, and so they lower him through the roof. As many commentators have pointed out, this situation is a sign of the paralytic’s exclusion from community. By the end of the story, though, others join with him in…
Sermon outline for September 7 (though I’m reconsidering my take on Jesus’ “parable” about the wineskins). Jesus and the Pharisees, Luke 5:1-6:11 INTRODUCTION Anointed and baptized, Jesus has begun His mission of proclaiming and enacting the year of release, the great Jubilee, only to meet murderous rage from the people…
For several years, I have been assigning W. H. Auden’s poem “The Shield of Achilles” to my literature students, and they all have to write a paper on it. The poem is very rich, and I continue to learn new things. One student this year, for example, pointed out that…
Years ago, I enjoyed Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker , a superbly written account of Lewis’s years on Wall Street. His latest, Moneyball , is even better. Lewis tells the story of the Oakland A’s, and particularly of their GM Billy Beane, and how he revolutionized the way baseball players are…
A truly amazing article by Khaled Anatolios of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology (Cambridge, Mass) in the most recent issue of Pro Ecclesia . Anatolios is exploring the perennial question of the Spirit, and defends the traditional characterizations of the Spirit as “mutual love” and “gift” by using the…
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