Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I live in an area where Mardi Gras is in full swing, and I can remember from my upbringing that Fat Tuesday was a last ditch effort at debauchery before the pseudo-spiritual practice of “giving something up for Lent” really began. In my youth I would give up some kind…
Part 1: Observations from the Texts (Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22, Luke 5:33-39) The precipitating context for the new wine/old wineskins discussion is people asking Jesus why His disciples did not fast. His immediate answer is that you can’t get the friends of the groom to fast at the bachelor party…
Simply, “progress” means to move forward. In that sense, a slug can progress from one end of the sidewalk to the other. But for us in twenty-first century America, progress means something else. For us, it is almost a synonym for goodness. The slug can only “progress” if the other…
I have the privilege of being able to counsel a lot of women who are seeking abortions. I can tell you that the majority of them are seeking to end their pregnancies not because they feel like it would be a fun thing to do, but because they are scared…
Last night, along with a few online friends, I watched this debate on the meaning of life between William Lane Craig, Rebecca Goldstein, and Jordan Peterson, hosted by Wycliffe College. While watching it, and reflecting upon Peterson’s work more generally (about which I’ve written in the past ), I was…
I’m glad to have been invited to contribute regularly to the Theopolis Institute website. Thank you, readers, for welcoming and joining what I hope will be a venture of integration. Integration itself is what I want to explore. And for me personally, this is the shape of my current integrative…
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Zizek ( The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? ) thinks that John Caputo and Giorgio Agamben are right to say that Nietzsche’s declaration of the death of God could only turn inside out. According to them ( After the Death of God ), “if there’s no overarching principle, that…
In his effort to “think with” Carl Schmitt ( Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty ), Paul Kahn uses a “sacrificial” conception of sovereignty to isolate differences between America and Europe, and between pre-modern and modern states. America v. Europe first (16-17): “To the question of…
Bauman ( Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age , 144-5) gives several examples of how the pressure of research and military planning lead to atrocities. One occurred in the German town of Wurzburg in March 1945, “when Nazi Germany was already on its knees and the speedy end…
In his Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age , Zygmunt Bauman refers to the work of Gunther Anders on the “Nagasaki syndrome,” which Anders warned carried “the fully and truly apocalyptic potential of ‘globicide.’” The Nagasaki syndrom “means that ‘what has been done once can be repeated over…
Some punishments, Thomas says ( ST , I-II, 87), are punishments strictly speaking, some are satisfactory, some are medicinal. Punishment strictly speaking is the repression of order that retaliates against an offense committed against the order (art. 1). A violation of man’s own order of reason is punished by remorse…
James Jordan has pointed out that the book of Revelation gives us seven names for Satan: Wormwood (8:10-11), the poisoner of wells; Abaddon and Apollyon (9:11), both of which mean “destroyer” but which speak of destruction of Hebrew and Greek worlds respectively; Dragon (12:1), devourer of children; Serpent (12:9, 15),…
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