Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jer 31:15). The Night of the Hunter belongs on every Christian’s Christmas list. My family has even…
One important part of Jesus's birth narrative is the presence of angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, announcing that she would bear a son. And then, on the night Jesus was born, a whole host of angels appeared to the shepherds. Angels are mysterious creatures to us.…
I was settled nicely into my chair and listening to the conversation in an undergrad religion seminar, my last required course to graduate. Though a few Christians sat scattered around the room, the course itself was dedicated to poking holes in traditional understandings of the Bible: our readings deconstructed notions…
God’s symbols belong to Him and to His people. They are constantly at work in the world, including the world of film, music, painting, architecture, and other artforms. You cannot escape God’s symbols or the meaning He has woven into the created order. Artists use and borrow God’s symbols, whether…
For centuries, Christians identified Israel in the Old Testament as a single, literal ethnic group, often called “the Jews.” Even supersessionists – those who believed the Church superseded Israel – assumed the clear-cut, technical definition of “Israel” in the Bible is the ethnic group. However, a deeper dive into Genesis,…
Misreading Intent In the opening verses of Matthew 11, the reader is confronted immediately by John the baptizer who has been imprisoned since 4:12. John poses a question to Jesus, inquiring from prison as to whether or not he is Israel’s awaited Messiah or if they should anticipate another: “Are…
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Gentiles contributed materials to every sanctuary in the Bible. But the character of their contributions changes. Tracing the changes displays the trajectory of redemptive history. Pharaoh contributes to the tabernacle unwillingly. Pummeled by plagues, he lets Israel go, and as they go they “plunder Egypt.” Call Pharaoh an “involuntary supplier.”…
In his Spirit of Protestantism , Robert McAfee Brown argues that catholicity was a major concern of the Reformation. From the viewpoint of the Reformers, “medieval Christendom had surrendered the notion of catholicity to a limited and distorted understanding of the Christian faith. And the Reformers, in trying to recapture…
B ruce Wilson quoted me at the Huffington Post Blog the other day. To be precise, he quoted Evangelical activist (not, as Wilson says, pastor ) David Lane quoting me, without attributing the quote to me. That’s OK by me. I don’t mind not being quoted in an article with…
You’d think we were living in Jericho, what with all the talk of walls falling down. The Berlin wall is down. Europe has no more borders. Technology ignores the political map of the world. Not to mention all the conceptual boundaries that are being breached. And that’s a good thing,…
In his forthcoming translation of The Writings, Strong As Death Is Love , Robert Alter argues that the writings are late. We know this because of the type of Hebrew that these books use: “Biblical Hebrew, like any language, changed through time. The temporal distance between the sundry strands of…
It’s an old saw, but is it possible to read Augustine’s description of the corruptions of the Roman Republic ( City of God , Book 2) without a wince (or a wink) of recognition? “Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it nourish and abound in resources; let…
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