Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Where do we go from here? Depending on one’s perspective, the American story can plausibly be interpreted in different ways. Looked at from past to present , we can see a great deal of continuity from medieval Christendom and the Reformation to America’s founding. The War for Independence, after all,…
Click HERE for Part 1 Civic Religion: American or Christian? We have already traced out the basic contours of the shift in America from an ecclesiocentric, theocratic social order to a secular one. Building on Locke and Hobbes, the Enlightenment accomplished an astonishing coup of Christendom. That victory for the…
Author’s Introductory Note: Engaging in broad historical interpretation as I am about to do is always risky. Necessarily, one “stylizes” history by simplifying, over generalizing, and stereotyping. But the narrative qualities of history are not simply due to the imposition of human rationality upon brute facts; rather history is always…
A. Repentance to life involves endeavoring to believe real hard that you’re saved. reject infant baptism. stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. walk with God in all the ways of his commandments. B. What is necessary so that no sinner may expect to be forgiven unless he does it? Only…
The machine works mechanically and it is flawless. Slander/libel a group of Presbyterian ministers as “Romanist” because robes and James 2 are no worse than praying to Mary or relying on purgatory to pay for unconfessed sins. Drive off anyone who disagrees. Of that number, there may be a tiny…
If we take as a starting point the Tribal / Monarchical / Empire model, we can then add to it the Late Empire Phase. The particular ‘marker sin’ of Empire is false intermarriage, which signifies pluralism and syncretism. Empires by definition are “cosmopolitan” dominated by cities, high culture, many cultures,…
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Augustine Thompson ( Cities of God ) strongly disputes the notion that Italian urban communes of the late medieval period were “secular” organizations. They were religious, so much so that the city was defined and named as the seat of the bishop: “The city: the church. The church: the bishopric.…
When the Lamb takes the book, the angels sing a new song, a song of kingship (Revelation 5:8-10). In it, the sum up the work of the Lamb in a triadic formula that expands to a quaternity. The Lamb 1) was slain 2) to purchase for God from every tribe,…
Through the mid-19th century, American culture was dominated by a moral establishment that used the coercive authority of the state to enforce certain patterns of Christian morality. According to David Sehat ( The Myth of American Religious Freedom ), that establishment began to be challenged from within the universities, and…
At the end of his Word Made Global , Mark Gornik lists a number of the gifts that African churches can offer to the rest of the church. One is “an invitation to name ourselves by Pentecost”: “Through the name of Jesus, African Christians believe that the Spirit brings forth…
The early life of Moses anticipates the later history of Israel. Moses is rescued from water, flees from an attack by Pharaoh, finds water in the wilderness, meets Yahweh on the mountain of God, moves to a new land. The life of Moses also looks backward, recapitulating the life-history of…
Back in 1960, less that 15% of the population of the US was non-European. Most of that minority were blacks. That proportion has more than doubled in the fifty years since: “the growth of non- Europeans is expected to continue at an accelerated rate. In just the last twenty years…
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