Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The god of Israel was not just any god. Two thousand years of Christian history, with it’s besetting philosophical temptations, and full-blown deist and transcendentalist and universalist problems, have obscured the fact that, in itself, the identity of the true god (or gods) cannot be predetermined, any more than the…
Jacob and Solomon God gave wealth and possessions to Jacob, and then threatened to take them all away at Peniel. Jacob wrestled with God, and through prayer Jacob saw through the crisis by faith and was made victor (Hosea 12:4). The Kingdom period in Israel concerns the same themes. We…
In our study of the historical impact and unfolding of the Ten Words of God, we now arrive at the Third Word. The Third Word prohibits hypocrisy, and when we realize this, we can see right away that disobeying the Third Word is closely tied to the situation of Israel…
Abraham and Joshua In our previous two essays, we considered aspects of the lives of Abraham and Jacob, as these display how God works with men in history. These two men carry in themselves all the future of Israel, so to speak, and their lives at the individual level correspond…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World (continued) Physical Training Though it is seldom recognized any more, the fact is that no liberal arts and no science is possible apart from peace, and peace is only possible if there is a strong military presence that protects a nation.…
Last month, in our essay " Patriarchal Dominion ," we observed the flow from Abraham to Jacob to Joseph. Our concern here is to advance our understanding of that narrative flow. I should mention that I am assuming much that is found in my book Primeval Saints: Studies in the…
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Milbank ( Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People ) points out that the Enlightenment was not simple one thing: “it can bedivided into (a) a Christian and sometimes post -Christian Ciceronian Stoicreaction against the voluntarism of ‘modern Christian’ thought;(b) a perpetuation of Reformation…
Milbank’s Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People presupposes that there is a homology between metaphysics and politics. He identifies four assumptions of modern philosophy: “(1) the univocity rather than analogy of being; ( 2) knowledgeby representation rather than identity; ( 3 ) the…
Richard Beck ( The Slavery of Death ) quotes some impressive passages from Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death . They’reworthy of re-quoting. “This is what society is and always has been: asymbolic action system, a structure of statuses and roles, customsand rules for behavior, designed to serve as a…
Observing that Christians today “sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disoriented,” Walter Bruggemann suggests that the church is in a state of denial: “The church is less an evangelical defiance guided by faith, and must more a frightened, numb denial and deception that does not want…
I review Richard Beck’s stimulating The Slavery of Death at the Trinity House site.
Jeremiah’s message to Judah is that the Lord has given the earth into hands of his “servant,” Nebuchadnezzar: “I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him” (27:6).…
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