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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At the end of his wonderful essay on “Art and Sacrament,” the Welsh poet and painter David Jones included a fragment that he wrote and rewrote over several decades. Here is wisdom: I said, ah! what shall I write? I inquired up and down (he’s tricked before with his manifold…
In a 2003 TNR review of Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning film, The Pianist , Michael Oren gives information about Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who assists Szpilman: “while scrounging in an abandoned house for food, Szpilman comes face-to-face with a German officer. Instead of drawing his revolver, the officer asks Szpilman…
Here are a couple of selections from a September 2004 New Yorker interview with Marilynne Robinson: Q. “In your nonfiction collection, ‘The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought,’ you wrote about the sixteenth-century theologian John Calvin, and about his strong sense of humanism and tolerance and his importance to…
Charles Segal argues in his Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey that Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is a return to himself. This works in several dimensions. Through the second half of the epic, various characters reconstruct the story of Odysseus’ life - the story of his naming and the…
Charles Segal argues in his Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey that Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is a return to himself. This works in several dimensions. Through the second half of the epic, various characters reconstruct the story of Odysseus’ life - the story of his naming and the…
Discussing the question of the corporeality of angels, Herman Bavinck argues that angels cannot have bodies because that would imply they are material and “matter and spirit are mutually exclusive.” He charges that “it is a form of pantheistic identity philosophy to mix the two and to erase the distinction…
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