Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“And it shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,” declares the Lord, “they shall say no more, ‘The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.’ And it shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they miss it, nor…
Elsewhere, I have argued that there is grace in the so-called covenant of works (see, e.g., my colloquium essay, “A Response to ‘The Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros and Cons , edited by Calvin Beisner (pages 118-148). It may be equally surprising to find justice…
Years ago, as a layman, I had the privilege of attending a Bible study led by a gifted teacher. His story was interesting: back when he was a student he had been severely sanctioned for affirming that one must repent in order to be saved, that one must trust Jesus…
Believing that God really exists Defining “faith” is sometimes made too complicated. The theologian, Louis Berkhof, for example, distinguishes “faith in general” from “faith in the religious sense and particularly saving faith.” Berkhof’s core definition of saving faith is not so bad. He says that it is “a certain conviction,…
It is generally acknowledged that when Paul wrote letters to churches, he expected his letters to be read in the worship service to the congregation. It is interesting, then, that when Paul wrote letters to a congregation he could feel free to address children and tell them to obey their…
Book 4 of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion is a classic work of ecclesiology. This book is the longest section of the Institutes , showing Calvin’s deep interest in and love for the church. Among its many salutary features is a full scale exposition of those ecclesiastical leaders Calvin…
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According to the traditional church calendar, we are several Sundays into Trinity season. Trinity season begins with Trinity Sunday, which is the first Sunday after Pentecost, and Trinity season stretches through the summer and into the autumn, until the beginning of Advent. It is the longest of the seasons of…
Numbers 13:32 Throughout the OT, the land promised to Israel is described as a ?land flowing with milk and honey.?E This is an image of rich abundance, of course, but it is particularly an image of the rich abundance of food. God did not choose a land where Israel would…
Enrique Krauze provides some powerful criticisms of Samuel Huntington’s claims about the influence of Mexican immigration on American cultural identity in the June 21 issue of TNR . Huntington argues in his recent book that there is a core American culture, and it is “Anglo-Protestant.” Mexicans, Spanish-speaking and Catholic, threaten…
James Woods perceptively notes that the triumph of theory in literary studies is less the triumph of Marx than the triumph of Freud: “One of the decisive changes that theory effected was to introduce the idea that texts do not know themselves. It is the critic’s business to reveal their…
Writing on Joyce’s Ulysses just before the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, Declan Kiberd notes the oddity of the ending: “the climax of Ulysses is a meeting between two men, the young poet Stephen Dedalus and the older ad-canvasser Leopold Bloom . . . . The meeting of Dedalus and Bloom…
Can there be a Creator-creature distinction without the Trinity? It would seem not. For a unitarian theology “distance” is introduced only with the world; for a unitarian god to be at a distance, there must be something to be at a distance FROM. But because “distance” is not of the…
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