Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We've all heard it, too often to count. The Apostle Paul was a misgynistic homophobic pro-slavery authoritarian, probably a repressed homosexual himself, the first Puritan - Puritan here defined as "someone who cannot sleep if someone in the world is having fun." To call this a caricature is too generous.…
Some of our forefathers believed in reading/singing the psalms in order. Today, when the psalms are even used at all, they tend to be used randomly, though sometimes tied to a church calendar or to the pastor’s sermon. The Bible does not bind us to any particular practice, but there…
". . . and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul’s passing comment about the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness has often been treated as a bit of…
The story of Hezekiah’s illness and recovery is familiar to every child who has attended Sunday School. Informed that he would die, faithful King Hezekiah pleaded in tears for a longer life. God heard his prayers and saw his tears, and promised fifteen more years. As a sign that He…
When viewed as an allegory of biblical history, the controversial third act of Danny Boyle’s gripping sci-fi adventure is transformed from an illogical divergence into a blinding revelation. The following analysis contains spoilers for the movie “Sunshine.” The Creation Week is the elementary type that orders everything God has said…
In my last post , I told you the story of my current desire to understand philosopher D.C. Schindler’s metaphysical work. With this post, I start in to the venture. I begin by reflecting on what it is to be a thing. This matter always makes me laugh, and makes…
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One of the key distinctions in Rosenstock-Huessy’s grammatical sociology is that between names and words. In his brief discussion of this distinction in The Christian Future (CF), he begins with an expression of his horror at John Dewey’s notion that “We have to find another set of words to formulate…
After the northern tribes abandon the house of David (2 Chronicles 10), Rehoboam settles in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 11:5). He builds cities for defense and for storage (11:5-12), receives the Levites and priests who flee from idolatrous Israel (11:13-17), marries and has children (11:18-23). The chapter moves from land to…
Underlying Rosenstock-Huessy's entire discussion of the diseases of speech is the assumption that language establishes relations. In this, Rosenstock-Huessy is again assaulting one of the premises of modernity, namely, the centrality of the Ego, and the consequent notion that language exists so that the Ego can express its thoughts and…
My Firstthings.com column last week was about Scottish poet Thomas A. Clark (not to be confused with the American poet Tom Clark). Here are the first few paragraphs: T homas A. Clark is ambitious. In a short essay on “Imaginative Space,” the Scottish poet describes our “late culture,” which is…
Though sometimes conflated, purity and holiness aren't the same thing in the Old Testament. There are two overlapping spectra: A spectrum from profane or common on the one side and holiness/sanctity on the other, and a spectrum with unclean/impure to clean/pure on the other. The difference is evident in the…
Truth has a bad rap these days. A claim to know truth sounds dogmatic, oppressive, perhaps even racist. Truth-claims shut down dialogue: If you already know the truth, there's nothing for us to talk about. In his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate , Benedict XVI took on this hostility to…
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