Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Understanding Shakespeare’s Biblical references is vital for the interpretation of many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. For Othello , it is especially important, not only because the interpretation of the play is contested among various approaches — feminist, homosexual, post-colonial, Marxist, Freudian, new historical, and others — but also…
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism . He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions…
I begin with two observations. First, on any millennial view, the Christian account of history is progressive, moving from the garden to the city. It is eschatological not only in that there is an end, but that the end is a glorified beginning, not merely a return to origins. To…
The church is a new form of polity that erupts into the world as much as the Son of God comes into the world. It’s a real-world political alternative to the polities of the ancient world. It resolves many of the political dilemmas of the ancient world, though not simply…
In my last post , I explained how Baptists really have a “one-ordinance-one sacrament” ecclesiology. I said this: “what Baptists really believe, in modern parlance, is that there is one ordinance (baptism which is a sign or symbol only) and one sacrament (the Lord’s Supper in which feeding upon Jesus…
One of the most extensive and penetrating responses to the Yoder-Hauerwas attack on Constantiniansm is found in Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations , in a chapter entitled “The Obedience of Rulers.” O’Donovan defines the word “Christendom” as “a historical idea,” specifically “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order,…
Showing page 111 of 309
Showing page 42 of 43
The Shunammite woman sets Elisha up with a small sanctuary in an upper room, complete with menorah, table, throne-chair, and bed (= altar). When the woman’s son dies, Elisha lays him on the bed/altar, and he revives. He is another Isaac, Elisha a new Abraham. Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac was…
The church’s response to Copernicanism is often cited as a textbook example of the tyranny of faith over investigation and reason. Dogmatically committed to geocentrism, the church wanted to shut the door on alternative explanations. The truth, Owen Barfield argues, is very nearly the opposite: “When the ordinary man hears…
We think our popular culture is as crass as it comes, but in 18th century London, in Cripplegate, there was a fart club, where, as Kenneth Baker says, “the members met once a month to give of their best.” The much-maligned Victorian Age was the great cleansing of British culture,…
INTRODUCTION John begins his first epistle where he begins his gospel, announcing the incarnation of the Word who was from the beginning. Through this incarnation, John and his readers have fellowship with the Father and Son. THE TEXT “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we…
The original formless-and-void creation was dark. God created light, and saw it was good. We might think that the creation of light itself would be sufficient to divide light and darkness, but that’s not the way Genesis tells the story. It takes a distinct act to separate light and darkness.…
Words are not hard BBs of meaning. Nor are words like the atoms of ancient atomic theory - impermeable bits of matter. Words are like atoms as understood in modern physics, taking on new properties when they are in the vicinity of other words. Or, if you like, words are…
Showing page 1792 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
