Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Reformers did not start out with a plan to found separated churches. Their goal was to reform the entire Latin church. In this they failed. The paradox is sharp, and we need to feel its point and its edge if we Protestants are to reckon honestly with our history…
Conversion is a turning from sin to Christ. Now, let's think about that. Does conversion happen only once in a lifetime, or does it happen many times? That is the question, I believe, that needs answering. From my experience, and from my understanding of the Bible and of Christianity, there…
Israel was supposed to be a priest to the nations (Ex. 19:6). Her water would cause their trees to grow. This was signified to all men when Israel came out of Egypt, for "then they came to Elim, where they were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and…
Rousing Soviet songs surround us as we pass through a gloomy gauntlet of titanic statues on our way to Kyiv’s Museum of the Great Patriotic War. My friends, a Polish and a Ukrainian pastor, remember the songs, which played incessantly on the radio during their childhood. The sculpture complex depicts…
This is the second installment of a two-part article. Click HERE to read Part I. The fourth perspective on ceremony is that of the action of the Lord's Supper. As we noted before, the inauguration of the Lord's Supper preceded its interpretation. Jesus did not at that point give an…
The best courses are those that make you see the Bible, the church, or the world differently. The recent Theopolis Architecture Course with Daniel Lee did exactly that. Architect Daniel Lee began the week with architectural theory, continued through the week taking students through a history of architectural practice, and…
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Like his book on the sacraments , Henry de Candole's brief study of the Eucharist, The Church's Offering , shows that liturgical renewal is inevitably also a renewal of ecclesiology. De Candole distinguishes between private prayers and the public worship of the church. The latter "is not simply the gathering…
In the opening essay to Reflexive Modernization , Ulrich Beck defines the phrase in the book's title as "the possibility of a creative (self-)destruction for an entire epoch." This creative destruction is not the product of a crisis but the result of the "victory of Western modernization" (2). Quoting Marx…
In After God , Tristram Engelhardt notes that autonomy is not merely a source of authority in secular culture, but "a cardinal directing value or goal." In today's world, one is "obliged freely to choose in conformity with very particular understandings of freedom. The result is that morally condemning autonomously…
Just before Luke records Jesus' visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36-50), he records Jesus teaching about the responses of the Jewish leaders to His ministry and the ministry of John (7:30-35). They don't catch the tune of the times, but the tax gatherers and sinners do.…
The following essay was first published at Firstthings.com . Lent is a time of renunciation and fasting, spiritual striving, self-examination, contrition, and penitence. It seems a grim and black season of self-accusation. But that’s all superficial. Lent is better understood as a season of Christian comedy. It’s not the glum…
Even after the disciples have seen Jesus calm the storm and walk on the sea, even after they have eaten miracle bread, they don’t understand. They don’t know what we know – that Jesus is Son of God. The problem isn’t a lack of evidence. They have plenty of evidence…
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