Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"The faithful use of sacraments, and indeed a fully sacramental view of creation, is vital to the life of the Church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are rites that directly shape the community and the Body, because they were given by God for that express purpose. A deficient practice of…
Weightlessness is fun. At the beginning of Gravity (2013) , we can see one astronaut dancing the Macarena and another one playing with his jetpack. They like it out there in the space. Apart from zero-gravity they can enjoy beautiful views, and even the silence is likable, although Matt Kowalski…
I recently went to a lunch that is more or less quarterly. About a dozen of us go. It is a lunch held in honor of a retired professor of religion and philosophy. I have been one of his acquaintances for more than 40 years. In his tenure as professor,…
Why Theopolis? Don't we already have seminaries and Bible colleges and other institutions for theological education? Why do we need another one? I get this question now and again. I ask myself this question even more often. What follows is a partial answer. Back in the 1990s, seminaries seemed to…
I think the logic of the Lutheran Reformation can be summarized in one sentence, attributed to Luther himself: "God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does." The first half of that statement is justification by faith . God doesn't need our works to satisfy his justice or…
If you are looking to start a fight with Christians, there is hardly a better subject to do so than the arts. Music, movies, paintings, and literature have provided no small battlegrounds for Christians to war. We are emotionally invested in the arts. A song, a book, or a film…
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Milbank argues that, given its ontology of violence, paganism can only respond to violence with a counter-violence of its own. Political and social thus do not rest on peaceful donation or harmony but on the threat and actual practice of violence. This view could be refined by introducing redemptive history.…
Robert Louis Wilken has a very fine piece on the “church’s way of speaking” in the Aug/Sept issue of First Things. He points out that the church’s faith is not merely “doctrinal propositions, creedal affirmations, and moral codes” but “a world of discourse that comes to us in language of…
Kierkegaard: “Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close . . . We would be sunk if it were not for Christian scholarship! Priase be to everyone who works…
Ephesians 1:7, 13-14: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace . . . In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him…
Almost from the beginning of the university in the late Middle Ages, students have formed a community of their own, set off from the surrounding community. Sometimes this division of town and gown erupted in literal battles. As recently as the late 1960s, students in various universities in Europe and…
This comment comes from Burke’s “Letter to a Noble Lord,” addressed to the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale. He is warning that “the rude inroad of Gallic tumult” will turn on any English nobles who support it: “With them insurrection is the most sacred of revolutionary duties…
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