Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
If 1 Chronicles were a movie, it would begin with two hours and forty-five minutes of credits: Name after name scrolling across the screen, most of them (as far as we’re concerned) obscurities and nonentities and unknowns, forgotten fathers and sons and mighty men; all the bit players in the…
Let me locate myself. I’m sitting on a sand dune, three hundred feet above the blue-as-a-swimmer-crab water of Lake Michigan. I’m so high above the surface that the sound of the waves flopping onto the beach is as quiet as wind easing through a screen door. Around me are several…
My title is too grand. What I offer here falls far short of a full description of poetry. I barely offer a definition. A more accurate title would be “Axioms and Suspicions About Poetry.” Axioms first. I have three of them. The first is the closest I can come to…
In his book In Defense of Food Michael Pollan does just what the title suggests, he defends food. Pollan argues that the presupposition behind modern food science, or “nutritionism” as he calls it, is that humans don’t need food, they need nutrients. To be sure, modern science is not yet…
The early church took possession of the Roman Empire within a few centuries, largely because she ministered sacrificially in word and deed. The church provided services and care that the empire and pagan religions could not in times of crisis. The faithful witness of those serving Christians bore great fruit…
My title, “The Original Murder” will be understood by many readers, if not almost all, to refer to Cain’s murder of Abel, but I have in mind the very first murder, the one which Jesus pointed to when He said that Satan was a murderer “from the beginning.” “You are…
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Isaiah 11:9: The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. I finished Sunday School earlier today, where I gave an overview of the last chapters of Revelation. On Tuesday, my final graduate and undergraduate classes will both be on Revelation. Last…
Things are changing and all the changes will be great blessings so long as you don’t let the demands of the moment distract you from being the church. Look at this new phase as a fresh opportunity to live up to our name – Trinity Reformed Church. God is Love,…
In an essay on marriage and the construction of reality , Peter Berger and Hansfried Kellner observe how the modern “crystallization” of the public/private divide has affected the pursuit of identity and reputation: “It would . . . seem that large numbers of people i our society are quite content…
Thomas ( ST III, 60, 1) is interestingly careful in the way he deals with the notion that sacraments are causes. He asks whether sacraments are signs, and his first objection is grammatical: Sacramentum comes from sacrando , which means “sacring,” and, on analogy with medicando , it refers to…
Thomas asks ( ST III, 60, 5) whether the sensible thing of the sacraments is a “determinate” something. Do we have to use specific things, or may we substitute at will? His answer is that sacramental elements are determinate, and his reasoning has to do with the nature of sacramental…
In the current issue of The Weekly Standard , Jon A. Shields gives a searing summary of the trial of Kermit Gosnell. He admits, “the liberal position on killing abortion survivors makes a bizarre kind of moral sense,” and then adds: “After all, what is the moral difference between killing…
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