Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I just finished re-reading G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday . I have in the past had the temerity to say that I believe it to be the best novel of the 20th century. Be that as it may, I still maintain that it is at least one…
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that thoughts out of many hearts may be…
I was inspired to write this article after reading John Ahern’s The Case for Shorter Hymnals first published on Theopolis Institute’s website on November 16, 2021. Mr. Ahern and I are writing with different audiences and emphases in mind. I am thankful we both share a mutual desire to see…
If you’ve spent any time in the social-media galaxy of Christian cultural commentators, you have almost definitely run across the Latin phrase Imago Dei . It means image of God . Why they usually say it in Latin, I couldn’t tell you. We saw it in the wake of the…
The Gospel of Matthew—indeed, the New Testament—begins with a list of names, and that list of names is introduced by this heading: “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Why start like this? Why “the son of David” and “the son…
A blade is raised. A child wails. But the brow under the crown is untroubled. Solomon knows that the raising of the sword will reveal the true parent and the identity of the son. But how did he know this? Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac certainly bears some of the…
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Romans 13:1-7 is often separated from its context and treated as a Pauline statement about the Christian’s or the church’s relation to the state. We can certainly draw some conclusions from the passage: God is the source of all public authority (13:1). Whoever resists authority resists the ordinance of God…
Over the past decade, Rusty Reno, editor at First Things , has established himself as one of America’s most interesting cultural and political voices. In his recent Return of the Strong Gods , Rusty offers an eccentric reading of recent history as a collapse of what he calls the “postwar…
The gospel is an inherently political message. As Paul explains it in Romans 1, it’s the announcement that Jesus, Son of David, has been installed as King in His resurrection. Romans 12—15 fills out the ecclesio-political import of this message. Because Jesus is King, He will restore human society. Because…
Red Sky in Morning , Paul Lynch's 2013 debut novel, is a stylistic tour de force . Like the poetry of Seamus Heaney (whom Lynch credits for inspiration), he captures the craggy, muck-mudded landscape of Lynch's native Ireland. Convoluted syntax, unobtrusive Irish colloquialisms, hints of alliterative verse lend the novel…
Over the past several weeks, I've argued that in Romans 9-11 Paul offers a first-century solution to a first-century problem. Paul doesn't , I argue, predict a conversion of Jews in the distant future. He argues instead that Israel's role in the foundation of the new covenant takes the form…
Mary Eberstadt’s Primal Screams is a well-researched, cleanly-written book, full of evidence, theories, statistics, anecdotes, analysis. Its thesis is arresting and compelling. Eberstadt claims we can trace the rise of identity politics to the “Great Scattering” that followed the sexual revolution of the 1960s. When we as a culture decided…
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