Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Paul writes to Jews, “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:22b) The English translation “rob temples” makes readers think of pagan temples. There was only one Temple for Israel, so robbing more than one would indicate other temples are in view. And if the Jews wanted to…
Two offerings Humanity’s first vocation involves guarding and serving the trees that emerge from the ground (Genesis 2:15). God provides these trees to humanity for food. A serpent appears and tempts the couple to eat from a special forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity…
At the outset of the Torah (as Christians understand it), a triune God creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week. Why? What’s the connection between the three and the seven? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose?…
How relevant to the modern reader are the flying axe head of Deuteronomy 19:5 and the roof parapet of Deuteronomy 22:8? Indeed, how relevant were they to the daily lives of Israelites thirty-five hundred years ago? Suppose that accidental falls from rooftops were exceedingly uncommon in ancient Israel, or that…
1 For most of my life, the standing of the American church as a source of national social and political order was measured by reports from the front of the so-called “culture wars.” 2 Memory brings to mind battles over feminism and the ERA, so-called gay rights, the breakdown of…
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel…’ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the…
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A few thoughts on the “General Prologue” to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales . 1) The Prologue sets the stage for a multi-layered set of tales. The real-life Chaucer is, of course, the author, but in the Prologue, he introduces a fictional version of himself as narrator: It happened in that season…
In an essay on “Eschatology” in the Blackwell Companion to Political Theology , the late Robert Jenson argues that Christian eschatology is “directly and almost exclusively a discourse about politics.” The coming of the kingdom means that “the eschaton-polity” Israel hoped for, “the universal polity of peace, appeared as a…
The world’s most interesting man, Matthew B. Crawford, offers a brilliant and chilling diagnosis of “How Science Has Been Corrupted” at UnHerd . The hinge of his analysis is the “dissonance between our idealised image of science, on the one hand, and the work ‘science’ is called to do in…
Caryll Houselander begins her Passion of the Infant Christ with a meditation on seeds and sowing. “The countryman is not impatient,” she writes, “when flowers and fruit disappear and winter lingers.” His seed is in the ground, and he is “as conscious of life in winter, when the crust of…
Law, writes Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule ( Common Good Constitutionalism ), is “a reasoned ordering to the common good,” or, in the words of the Roman jurist Ulpian, “the art of goodness and fairness” (1). Public officials “have a duty, and corresponding authority, to promote the common good” (1).…
For centuries, Eucharistic piety has been distorted by ocular metaphors. We long to “see” Jesus at the table, but the bread and wine form a “veil.” Eucharistic desire is the desire to rend the veil of bread to enter into extra-festive spiritual communion. The ocular emphasis of Eucharistic piety pops…
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