Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the 48th year, the third month, and the fourteenth night, while I slept in my bed, I was taken in vision to Xanadu and set upon a high hill. Looking to the west, I saw a large building, surrounded with gardens and fountains, walks and gravestones, and a bell…
‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others) 1 claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to the high holiday to pretend…
Part 2: The Enoch Factor Back in Open Book 21 we discussed "The Enoch Factor." Because that was several years ago (May 1994) and many people have begun reading this letter since that time, we shall return to the subject here and expand what we wrote at that time. After…
Day 6. The sixth day provides the creation of land animals and of humanity. As we saw above, the second day spills over to the first half of the third day, for only at that point did God say that it was good. Similarly, it seems that the fifth day…
During the past two decades, the "quest of the historical Jesus" has entered a new phase. The first incarnation of the quest was rudely shaken by the publication of Albert Schweitzer’s classic Quest of the Historical Jesus , easily the most devastating and funniest work of New Testament scholarship ever…
At the 1997 Biblical Horizons Summer Conference, the Rev. Jeffrey Meyers presented a series of remarkable lectures on the gospel of Mark. Among his many insightful comments, he suggested that the second gospel continues where the first gospel ends; Matthew ends with Jesus saying "Go" (Matthew 28:19), and Mark’s shows…
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Charles Kenny observes that the world is growing wealthy: “The last 10 years have seen developing countries grow far more rapidly than high-income countries, closing the gap in average incomes. Economist Arvind Subramanian estimates that China in 2030 will be about as rich as the whole European Union today and…
News from Africa is often bad, but, as Alessandro Bruno says , there’s a fair bit of good news these days: “Africa is discovering a new spirit of optimism, reminiscent of the first decade of its post-colonial era. Despite inadequate infrastructure and at times even poorer governance, the continent has…
In The Construction of Social Reality and now again in Making the Social World , John Searle has explored the ontology of social facts. How can things that are themselves basically atomic particles and forces become objects like dollar bills and Presidents? Social facts are attributed subjectively by people, by…
Natural law theories often claim that there is a universal moral code acknowledged by all peoples in all times and places, derivable from nature. Bestiality would seem to be a good test case: Natural law arguments against bestiality are pretty straightforward, and then there’s the “natural” recoil that we all…
Rosenstock-Huessy devotes one of the essays in Die Sprache Des Menschengeschlects to an evaluation of modern urban culture, which includes a brilliant (albeit one-sided) screed about suburban life: “In the new suburbs provision will be made for all the denominations. . . . . No one faith is absolute in…
Milbank argues in Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People that “antiquity by and large knew of no ‘pure nature’, but already referred the natural to the supernatural, albeit this was too confined to intra-cosmic terms. Thus, as Eric Voegelin intimated, any notion (even…
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