Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Not long ago, I heard these statistics about New York City: New York City is in $100 billion in debt. 20% of all NYC residents are on food stamps, which cost $250 million a month. 5% of NYC population are on disability, costing $252 million a month. Other assistance costs…
1. All political power is ambivalent. Vertical violence of “the state” tends to limit horizontal and contested power between people and between tribes. “The State” brings new oppression, but also a measure of new peace and unity. 2. All political formations are ambiguous like this: a strong family conquers weaker…
Gnosticism by any other name would smell the same. But does the church have much of a theological sense of smell, these days, when it comes to the seductions of virtuality in our worshipping communities? Social isolation during a global pandemic makes good public health sense, but whether church should…
It is a remarkable thing, you know, this thing called priority. Just a few weeks ago, religious leaders were boldly asserting in their high-dollar online videos that it was too dangerous to return to worship and that we needed to listen to our political and health leaders. "They are the…
Somewhere in the city of Jerusalem on a rooftop just a few years after the ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost. . . ". . . and just when are you guys going to live up to your ‘Sons of Thunder’ reputation? Huh? A lot…
In my book, Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men ( Amazon , Kindle ) I mention that Solomon portrays wisdom as a woman. But I don’t ask (or answer!) why he did so. Solomon uses the figure of Lady Wisdom without apology or explanation: Wisdom cries aloud in the street,…
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What do we do when we disagree about what the Scriptures say? Augustine's answer to that question has rarely been put into practice. This from The Literal Meaning of Genesis : “And when we read in the divine books such a vast array of true meanings, which can be extracted…
Jon Baskin's piece on David Foster Wallace is the best thing I've come across on Wallace. He starts with the arresting claim that in time “it will be recognized that Wallace had less in common with Eggers and Franzen than he did with Dostoevsky and Joyce.” His fiction is a…
H ezekiah “completes” a Passover (2 Chronicles 31:1a), then starts breaking things. He continues until the destruction is also “complete” (2 Chronicles 31:1b; Heb. kalah ). He breaks pillars, cuts down Asherim, and pulls down high places and altars. Hezekiah's purge is described in a single complex verse, 2 Chronicles…
A “Kantian chapter on emotion and responsibility,” write John Sabini and Maury Silver ( Emotion, Character, and Responsibility ), ...is easy to write and quick to read: the domain of the moral is the domain of the will expressed in action; it is the domain of that for which we…
S ince at least Max Weber, historians and sociologists have assumed that the Reformation contributed to what Weber called the “disenchantment” of the world. The thesis has inspired rich historical, sociological, and philosophical studies, from Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic to Charles Taylor's A Secular Age .…
T he Chronicler's account of Hezekiah's Passover (2 Chronicles 30:1–12) is arranged in a neat chiasm: A. Hezekiah sent letters of invitation to Israel to join in Passover, vv. 1–4 B. Couriers take decree throughout the land, vv. 5–6a C. Content of the invitation/decree, vv. 6b–9 B'. Couriers pass through…
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