Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The god of Israel was not just any god. Two thousand years of Christian history, with it’s besetting philosophical temptations, and full-blown deist and transcendentalist and universalist problems, have obscured the fact that, in itself, the identity of the true god (or gods) cannot be predetermined, any more than the…
Jacob and Solomon God gave wealth and possessions to Jacob, and then threatened to take them all away at Peniel. Jacob wrestled with God, and through prayer Jacob saw through the crisis by faith and was made victor (Hosea 12:4). The Kingdom period in Israel concerns the same themes. We…
In our study of the historical impact and unfolding of the Ten Words of God, we now arrive at the Third Word. The Third Word prohibits hypocrisy, and when we realize this, we can see right away that disobeying the Third Word is closely tied to the situation of Israel…
Abraham and Joshua In our previous two essays, we considered aspects of the lives of Abraham and Jacob, as these display how God works with men in history. These two men carry in themselves all the future of Israel, so to speak, and their lives at the individual level correspond…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World (continued) Physical Training Though it is seldom recognized any more, the fact is that no liberal arts and no science is possible apart from peace, and peace is only possible if there is a strong military presence that protects a nation.…
Last month, in our essay " Patriarchal Dominion ," we observed the flow from Abraham to Jacob to Joseph. Our concern here is to advance our understanding of that narrative flow. I should mention that I am assuming much that is found in my book Primeval Saints: Studies in the…
Showing page 247 of 309
Showing page 39 of 43
Poor Joseph, we say. He’s on the margins of every Christmas story, every depiction in art, every medieval dramatic rendition. Leave it to Barth to find theological significance in Joseph’s marginality: Speaking of the Virgin Birth of Jesus, Barth says that “The male has nothing to do with this birth.…
You know the scene in the movie: The hero, finding that he can no longer resort to half-measures and fighting through intermediaries, decides he must take things into his own hands, and challenges the villain in hand-to-hand combat. That is incarnation.
David Martin’s Christian Language and Its Mutations: Essays in Sociological Understanding has some good moments. The big problem first: He seems to assume that sacred and secular are divided by a given (though fluid) boundary, and thus argues that Christianity must “adjust to” and “compromise with” the languages and mores…
When I see books with titles like Ideas That Changed the World I have one main reaction: Suspicion. That suspicion increases when the book is filled with splashy photos and sidebars full of soundbite-sized analysis. In the hands of Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, author of Millennium and an acclaimed history of food,…
At 23, James Frey had already been a drunk for over a decade, was addicted to crack, wanted in several states, subject to fits of violent Fury, a battered mess. Without knowing how, he ended up in a rehab center in Minnesota. A Million Little Pieces (Doubleday, 2003) is the…
David Bentley Hart’s The Beauty of the Infinite looks to be one of those books to savor, read, reread, mark, and inwardly digest. I’ve only read a bit of it, but it’s as masterful as his articles. (Stylisically, the book is by turns moving and maddening; I’ve never seen anyone…
Showing page 2147 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
