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Creation

Maker of Heaven and Earth, (Part 4)

In my previous two posts, I looked at aspects of Psalms 93, 95, 96 and 98 that declare Yahweh, the divine King, to be the world’s own Creator. In my next post, I plan to argue that the creation theology of the sub-section constituted by Psalms 93-100 contributes to the…

by Stephen LongApril 23, 2015
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Otherness

Sexual Difference, Liberal and Christian

Ethika Politika has published a fascinating interview within which the French Catholic philosopher Fabrice Hadjadj discusses his recent work on the subject of sexuality. While there are many points where our lines of reasoning as Protestants will sharply diverge from Hadjadj’s, there is also much that is deeply perceptive in…

by Alastair RobertsApril 21, 2015
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Literature

Macbeth and the Fall of Adam

For anyone in Shakespeare’s audience who knew the real story of Macbeth, his play must have been surprising. Shakespeare changed so many important details of the historical Macbeth’s life that had Raphael Holinshed, the main author of the most popular history of the British Isles in Shakespeare’s day — Holinshed…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 16, 2015
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Creation

Maker of Heaven and Earth, (Part 3)

I started looking at a sequence of psalms on divine Kingship (Psalms 93-100) in my last post, part of a series looking at the Old Testament’s witness to Yahweh’s exercise of absolute mastery over his cosmos. I am not trying to “prove” a doctrine of creation ex nihilo directly from…

by Stephen LongApril 14, 2015
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Anxiety

(Un)Holy Fear

Most of the time I believe that dread is wise, anxiety righteous, fear a holy thing. It sounds ridiculous, but bear with me. There are days when fear seems to be not only a rational response to my circumstances, but a moral duty. After all, being a grown-up means responsibility.…

by Leta SundetApril 11, 2015
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Psalms

Psalm 36 Commentary

Get the Psalm 36 Translation here Psalm 36 begins with several translation problems. First, the first word in the actual psalm, as it is found in the English text, is the word "oracle." This word also begins the second verse in the medieval Massoretic Hebrew text, which is our basic…

by James B. JordanApril 10, 2015

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Anselm and the Devil

Anselm is sometimes accused of deleting the devil from the story of atonement. His satisfaction theory is said to displace and replace the Christus Victor theology of the church fathers, and in so doing to replace and displace Jesus' conquest of the devil from the center of the atonement. In…

December 14, 2017

Must God Save Sinners?

Evangelicals commonly say things like, God would have been perfectly just if He had sent the whole of sinful humanity to hell. Anselm would beg to differ. God created "rational beings" so that "through rejoicing in him, it might be blessedly happy" ( Cur Deus Homo , 315). Man was…

December 13, 2017

Did the Father Will the Son's Death?

Boso, Anselm's interlocutor in Cur Deus Homo , cites a collection of New Testament texts, and concludes: "Christ endured death under the compulsion of obedience, rather than through the intention of his own free will" (276). Anselm denies that there is any compulsion involved. While he acknowledges that the Father…

December 12, 2017

Aram, Assyria, Babylon: The Structure of Isaiah

Three waves of Gentiles flood Judah in the book of Isaiah. The first threat is from Aram and Israel, from Syria and the Northern kingdom. Assyria is the rising power to the east, and that power is threatening to overrun the nations to the west of Assyria. The kings of…

December 12, 2017

Of Saints and Senators

Should we expect our political leaders to be saints? There's a case for saying No. We might begin by making a distinction between private morality and the use of public authority. The ethical question that's relevant to a political leader is the latter: Is he going to abuse power? What…

December 11, 2017

Making Time

In what Rosenstock-Huessy calls "the dead universe" of nature, "time gallops 'like water, flung from cliff to cliff' and is never present" ( In the Cross of Reality , 250). This means that "we get to know time only when we leave external space behind us. When a wall stands…

December 8, 2017

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