Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Understanding Shakespeare’s Biblical references is vital for the interpretation of many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. For Othello , it is especially important, not only because the interpretation of the play is contested among various approaches — feminist, homosexual, post-colonial, Marxist, Freudian, new historical, and others — but also…
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism . He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions…
I begin with two observations. First, on any millennial view, the Christian account of history is progressive, moving from the garden to the city. It is eschatological not only in that there is an end, but that the end is a glorified beginning, not merely a return to origins. To…
The church is a new form of polity that erupts into the world as much as the Son of God comes into the world. It’s a real-world political alternative to the polities of the ancient world. It resolves many of the political dilemmas of the ancient world, though not simply…
In my last post , I explained how Baptists really have a “one-ordinance-one sacrament” ecclesiology. I said this: “what Baptists really believe, in modern parlance, is that there is one ordinance (baptism which is a sign or symbol only) and one sacrament (the Lord’s Supper in which feeding upon Jesus…
One of the most extensive and penetrating responses to the Yoder-Hauerwas attack on Constantiniansm is found in Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations , in a chapter entitled “The Obedience of Rulers.” O’Donovan defines the word “Christendom” as “a historical idea,” specifically “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order,…
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The entire Bible is a book of exodus. The Gospel is the good news of exodus, the announcement that the God of exodus has entered our broken world to lead His children from the tomb to His table. The God of exodus comes to lead creation itself into the glorious…
A few additional reflections on National Conservatism and Christian Nationalism. My recurring, obsessive theme is: The dualism isn’t the solution; it’s the problem . First: In his contribution to the Theopolis Conversation on National Conservatism, William Wolfe writes , “NatCon is not trying to ‘save a nation’ in a spiritual…
Over the past week, Theopolis Senior Fellow Alastair Roberts has been embroiled in an intense online controversy. Alastair identified Thomas Achord as the author of racist tweets on a Twitter account that used the pseudonym “Tulius Aadland.” Until the controversy broke out, Achord was headmaster of a classical Christian school…
Two recent books on Christian nationalism became surprise Amazon bestsellers: Christian Nationalism by Gab founder Andrew Torba and pastor Andrew Isker, and The Case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolfe. The first is a brief biblical defense of Christian nationalism; the latter is a quasi-Thomistic, two-kingdoms argument for Christian nationalism.…
Romantic thinkers like Johann Gottfried Herder, developed an organic conception of nationhood. For Herder, a nation is an extended family, and so a perfect nation, the most natural state, is “one nation, an extended family with one national character." (I rely on this essay by Richard White.) People have a…
A few weeks ago, I gave an online talk for the Colson Center. These were my opening comments. Let me begin by playing a game theologians often play, the game of challenging the question. The title of this series is, “The Essential Church: Why Christians (and the World) Still Need…
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