Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Standing in the narthex at the font, parents joyfully approach with their newborn child. The pastor asks the parents a series of questions that may include their renunciation of the devil and all his works, their faith in God the Father, Son, and Spirit as explained in the Apostles’ Creed,…
And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, with…
Get the Psalm 30 Translation here Psalm 30 is a song for the dedication of "the house." Since it is by David, the house would seem to be his palace in Jerusalem. The psalm has an ABA structure, with the B structure being an exhortation to the saints, and the…
I once asked a ferryboat captain if steering a ferry was any different than driving, say, a big semi truck. He looked at me like I had just asked whether a bowling ball fell when you dropped it. “It’s completely different,” he said. “On the river, you never stay pointing…
The key scene in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing comes just after the first wedding scene when Claudio tosses Hero aside as a "rotten orange." He has been tricked into thinking that Hero is unfaithful, and that is an affront to his honor. He won't put her away quietly. He…
Medieval Christianity is in the news. That’s exciting for me as I have a PhD in medieval theology and I teach Ancient and Medieval Church History at Covenant Seminary. Thus I have a little “skin in the game,” as the saying goes. Earlier this week our President made some comments…
Showing page 160 of 309
Showing page 43 of 43
I n Destroyer of the Gods , Larry Hurtado reminds us that “in the Roman era the sexual use of children, including young adolescents and also younger children, was widely tolerated and even celebrated lyrically by some pagan writers of the day, such as Juvenal, Petronius, Horace, Strato, Lucian, and…
“O riginally and properly,” writes John McManners ( Death and the Enlightenment ), the term “dechristianization” refers “to the anti-religious manifestations of the French Revolution,” which were “neither homogenous in character nor unambiguous in meaning.” Dechristianization refers in part to administrative, institutional changes: “The transfer to the secular authorities of…
M ichael Oakeshott ( Hobbes on Civil Association , 38-39) states Hobbes's solution to the dilemma of human violence in evangelical terms. Human existence is plagued by the fear of death, and for Hobbes the only salvation lies in greater fear. The saviour is not a visitor from another world,…
“D uring the first eighty-eight years of [the 20th] century,” writes R. J. Rummel ( Death by Government ) “almost 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other…
J imena Canales has written a history of A Tenth of a Second . It seems an arbitrary cut-off. Why not 1/100 or 1/1000? After all, we've been able to measure in finer units than 1/10 of a second: “In 1878 Eadweard Muybridge famously photographed running horses galloping in a…
W hen the Reformation and humanism are discussed together, the question is typically how the latter helped produce the former. Erika Rummel ( The Confessionalization of Humanism in Reformation Germany ) turns the question around: How did the Reformation change humanism? One effect was in education: Protestant school orders, drawn…
Showing page 165 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
