Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“What’s the fastest route” he asks me as we quickly come to a stop behind a sea of red brake lights. I pull out my phone and map all the options. Every way is red with traffic backed up. Deep down I must be a small town girl because traffic…
Dear Friend of Theopolis, I have signed a stack of documents in the years since we started Theopolis, but my heart jumped a few beats as I looked at the thick lease contract. “This is real,” I thought. “This makes it really real.” Theopolis has been real for nearly three…
In the Edenic world of Perelandra, from C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, Ransom notices something about how the Green Lady treats the animals: [1] “There was in her face an authority, in her caresses a condescension, [2] which by taking seriously the inferiority of her adorers made them somehow less inferior…
In my previous two articles, I argued for the significance of the fact that baptism addresses our bodies in their objectivity. In the body, the self has an existence that runs deeper than our consciousness, decision, self-expression, and action. In washing our passive bodies, baptism seals us with an anticipatory…
Judah is a sinful nation, weighed down with iniquity. They are not the seed of Abraham, but the seed of iniquity. Their worship is abominable to Yahweh, because their hands are covered with innocent blood. They have not done good, or sought justice, or reproved the ruthless, or defended the…
Although we tend to define ourselves by our subjectivity —our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, decisions, actions—we are frequently forgetful of the objectivity of the self as body, the reality of the self that underlies and precedes all of our subjectivity. The body is the site of our ‘givenness’, where we are…
Showing page 139 of 309
Showing page 39 of 43
John Milbank argues ( Crisis of Global Capitalism , 29) that societies tend to be mixed - combining a necessary hierarchical element with elements of democracy and oligarchy. He begins from the Augustinian premise that "sort of human association defined by 'the object of its love.' This permits us to…
John Neville Figgis ( Pluralist Theory of the State ) acknowledges that corporate persons exist. The key question is: "how is this personality to be conceived? Is it a natural fact, the expression of the social union; or is it merely something artificial imposed upon the body for its own…
Writing in 1942, Christopher Dawson already recognized ( Judgment of the Nations , 52) the inner contradiction of the international principles embodied first in the League of Nations. "Self-determination" was the ideal for every people; yet at the same time technology was bringing nations into ever-closer intimacy. Dawson wrote, "The…
Philosopher James Ross explores “Musical Standards as a Function of Musical Accomplishment.” It’s a radical idea: We don’t measure music by anything outside music itself. Music is assessed and valued by standards that are internal to the performance of music. It sounds like relativism, but it isn’t. Ross insists that…
I've been checking the news more often than usual for the past week to find out if there's a breakthrough in the Las Vegas massacre. I imagine I'm not alone. When horror strikes, we look for explanations. We want to classify. Most often, we're looking for some kind of immanent,…
Stephen Beale argues that the NFL's real problem isn't protests against the flag but the league's militarization. He asks the question few have asked: Why is the anthem played at football games in the first place? According to Beale, "The singing of 'The Star Spangled Banner' was mandated during .…
Showing page 136 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
