Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The trailer for the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , was released last week. Following the success of the revival of the franchise in last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens , anticipation is unsurprisingly at a fever pitch. As in the case of The…
The word, “integration,” can sound abstract, technical, unhelpful. But as I represented it in my first installment on this matter , I take it instead to be the central desire of our lives. We long to integrate life, and to integrate ourselves. I offered as a preliminary definition, that integration…
Anyone who has read his Bible straight through has done it. Admit it. When you get to those parts in Exodus that deal with the instructions for and construction of the Tabernacle, your eyes glaze over and your mind begins to wander. Measurements, lists of materials, meticulous details about clothes…
This article is a continuation of James Jordan's article, " From Bread to Wine ". We will here investigate the use of the word “cup” for the wine. I suggest that the cup itself corresponds to the firmament shell between heaven and earth, and that the liquid in the cup…
And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered…
In the Bible, bread (and beer, usually translated “strong drink,” liquid bread made from grain) is priestly and wine is kingly and prophetic. Bread comes first and wine later. Bread is alpha food while wine is omega food. You eat bread in the morning and drink wine at night. Bread…
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At the beginning of her discussion of Christian architecture in the Renaissance and Reformation, Jeanne Kilde ( Sacred Power, Sacred Space: An Introduction to Christian Architecture and Worship ) writes: “In the Renaissance period, the medieval notion of the church as the City of Heaven yielded to new ideas about…
John Paul II’s meditations on creation as gift in Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body (180-1) are deeply stimulating. He begins from the observation that the gift of creation is a “radical” gift, that is, a gift that constitutes the recipient in the giving, “an…
In Piers the Plowman (9), William Langland recounts the story of the sons of God and the daughters of men. Though he extrapolates from the text, he gets the story right (I am quoting from the Penguin Classics edition, Piers the Ploughman (Penguin Classics) ): “All Cain’s progeny came to…
Hyde ( The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property , 50-51) distinguishes between “work” and “labor.” The first is what we do by the hour. Labor has its own pace, and there is no timetable or tool to make it work more efficiency: “Writing a poem, developing a…
Lewis Hyde has some wonderful reflections on the “labor of gratitude” in his The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (47-51): With “transformative gifts,” the recipient of the gift “feels gratitude. I would like to speak of gratitude as a labor undertaken by the soul to effect the…
Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 209-10) gives this searing critique of Girard. For Girard, he says, “violence is primary . . . no love is possible. There are only hatred and ‘desire.’” Girard’s own analysis undercuts his theory: “In his discussion of the judgment of Solomon, Girard…
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