Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…
1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…
Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…
The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…
This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…
In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…
Showing page 2 of 309
Showing page 43 of 43
In Dialectic of Enlightenment , Horkheimer and Adorno characterize the Enlightenment assault on metaphysics as an assault on the remnants of old superstition. Among the Greeks, “by means of the Platonic ideas, even the patriarchal gods of Olympus were absorbed in the philosophical logos . The Enlightenment, however, recognized the…
In their study of Hobbes and Boyle, Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer show that Hobbes’s opposition to Boyle’s air pump was as political as scientific. Hobbes complained about the Catholic system because it introduced a double loyalty to church and state, and he was particularly vicious with the priests who…
Does beauty compel assent? It certainly seems to. Ought it? That’s trickier. If an explanation encompasses the data simply and elegantly and beautifully, does that make it a good explanation? Does that make it true? Are the “transcendentals” truly interchangeable? If the explanation does not compel by its beauty, what…
Can we say that Hosea had Jesus in mind when he wrote “out of Egypt I call My Son”? Does it matter whether he did or not? If not, does this mean we can do anything we like to texts, find in them whatever we care to bring? Historian David…
I read John 1:1, and I hear echoes of Genesis 1:1, and I begin to suspect that John wants to teach that the gospel story is a story of new creation. That conclusion does not rest simply on the phrase “in the beginning,” but that phrase is certainly a pointer…
David Steinmetz finds Benjamin Jowett’s claim that Scripture’s “one meaning” is “the meaning which it had to the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first received it” to be “insufficiently historical, He argues (in Ellen Davis and Richard Hays,…
Showing page 1791 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
