Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on…
A hundred years ago, William Warley signed a contract to buy a house in Louisville, Kentucky from Charles Buchanan, a white man. Before closing the sale, Warley, who was black, learned that the lot was subject to a city ordinance barring blacks from occupying the premises if most of the…
I concluded the first essay on this topic by saying that I would introduce three books about Shakespeare and the Bible, but I decided to introduce four instead. The three books become four are: Naseeb Shaheen, Biblical References in Shakespeare’s Plays (London: Associated University Presses, 1999) ; Hannibal Hamlin, The…
My children attend a classical Christian school, situated in the independent “free church” evangelical tradition. Over the past few years they have been growing in their acquaintance with the world of Homer, Plato, Virgil, and Livy. They enjoy it, and I envy it. The school is a great school. My…
The Prodigal Son parable (Luke 15) has been a favorite of liberal theologians for a couple of centuries. It seems to be a parable designed for liberal sensibilities: An indulgent, accepting Father; forgiveness extended without a cross; a surly older brother who might represent the "conservative" face of religion who…
“I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to…
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From the radio reports I hear, it seems that Arnold’s campaign is an extension of his movie career. At one stop, he unveils a bus bearing his mug, and buses for the press labeled “Predators.” At another stop, he talks about taxes, and says that in the movies he destroys…
In his Miscellanies , Edwards has some fascinatingly positive things to say about Samson. For example: In Judg xvi. 1, 2, we have an account how Samson loved a harlot, and from his love to her exposed himself to be compassed round by his enemies. So the prophecies represent the…
A few quotations from Edwards’ “Images of Divine Things” (1728): “When we travail up an hill ‘tis against our natural tendency and inclination, which perpetually is to descent; and therefore we can’t go on ascending without labor and difficulty. But there arises a pleasant prospect to pay us for our…
Mark Noll’s account of Edwards’s role in the undermining of the Puritan “sacred canopy” in New England, in his recent book America’s God , is an important analysis of one phase in the rise of American religion. According to Noll, the pattern goes something like this: 1) The Puritans had…
Thinking through an upcoming lecture on Edwards, I had a Borgesian moment: In 1731, there was a fire at the Cottonian library in England that nearly destroyed the single manuscript containing the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf . In the same year, Edwards preached a controversial sermon at his church in Northampton,…
Every great civilization has some equivalent of what the fifth-century (BC) Athenians called polupragmosune . As defined by William Arrowsmith, that word “connotes energy, enterprise, daring, ingenuity, originality, and curiosity; negatively it means restless instability, discontent with one’s lot, persistent and pointless busyness, meddling interference, and mischievous love of novelty.”…
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