Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Utopia is often accompanied by such adjectives as impossible, unrealistic, and impractical. In spite of that, it is not so hard to find some renowned people who actually maintain that is a very helpful and practical concept. Zygmunt Bauman ( Socialism: The Active Utopia ) argues that “utopian thinking belongs…
C. S. Lewis was no fan of the cinema. He once described himself as “rather allergic to films” and after attending one he added in a letter to a friend, “Do not worry it shall not become a habit.” But though he was quick to dismiss films, his fruitful discussion…
Noted Catholic patristic scholar, Robert Louis Wilken, delivered the second annual Nevin Lectures at Beeson Divinity School's Hodges Chapel last Friday and Saturday, February 20-21, 2015. Wilken, the Emeritus William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia, traced the influence of the writings…
I confess that I’m surprised by the number of Christians who are surprised by the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey . Many are simply bewildered by the buzz the movie has generated. They shouldn’t be. This is the world we live in. More precisely, this is the country we…
The newer perspective on justification by faith advocated in various studies in Pauline Theology by N.T. Wright and others, is now utterly relevant to our historical situation. Such work cannot be merely avant garde theologizing. In Luther’s day, everyone was “in” as regards the Church and the faith. We were…
Over the centuries, Christians have fasted for many reasons. Sometimes, the reasons have been good. The apostles and their churches fasted and prayed before selecting elders or ordaining missionaries. Christians have fasted in mourning for their sins. They have fasted and prayed to combat demons and to plead with God…
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Reformed theology has always stressed the utter sovereignty of God. He has planned all things, and works all things. But in certain forms of Reformed theology, this is subtly undermined and turns into its opposite. I’m thinking of Reformed theology (a hyper-Calvinist tendency) that so stresses God’s sovereignty that it…
Over at Grantland , Wesley Morris traces the shift in romantic comedy in the 1980s to the politicization of the genre: “By the 1980s, romantic comedy had started to turn inward, away from fights between two equals. Women took center stage — unless the movie was Tootsie , in which…
Mark tells us in a parenthetical aside that Jesus purged all meats, and Peter saw a vision that taught him that he could eat anything (Acts 10-11). Still, as Allen Frantzen details in his recent Food, Eating, and Identity in Early Medieval England , Western Christians continued to observe purity…
Gabriella Coleman has done field work on the group “Anonymous,” and argues in Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy that the group is not violent or dangerous. They’re only out for laughs, laughs of a particular kind indicated by the term lulz, which Coleman defines as “a deviant style of humor and…
Moses tells Pharaoh that Israel has to leave Egypt to perform their sacrifice before Yahweh because what they intend to do is abominable to the Egyptians. Why would it be abominable? For starters, bulls were divine - or at least mediated gods - to the Egyptians. Not appropriate for slaughter.…
Science and faith seem to be at odds. Many have suggested that’s because believers look to faith to do thing faith can’t do; if we adjusted our expectations about what kind of truth religion gives, science would be freed from the annoyances of the faithful, Tom McLeish ( Faith and…
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