Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…
I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…
In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…
The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…
Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…
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Jeffrey Burton Russell, who identifies himself as a “lapsed atheist,” has spent most of his career writing about Satan and hell. His most recent book is a history of the modern “mislaying” of heaven. Early in the book, he points out that “The ‘decline of heaven’ was linked to the…
In his “Hortatory Address,” Justin claims that Plato’s theory of forms came from a misreading of the tabernacle texts of Exodus: “And Plato, too, when he says that form is the third original principle next to God and matter, has manifestly received this suggestion from no other source than from…
In his “Hortatory Address,” Justin claims that Plato’s theory of forms came from a misreading of the tabernacle texts of Exodus: “And Plato, too, when he says that form is the third original principle next to God and matter, has manifestly received this suggestion from no other source than from…
As Hugo Rahner made clear in his classic study of the patristic uses of Greek myth, the church fathers saw Christ anticipated not only in the OT but in ancient literature and philosophy generally. Some examples: In Plato’s Republic (2, 361d-e), Glaucon describes the perfectly just man as one who…
In his “Hortatory Address to the Greeks,” Justin Martyr argued that the disagreements among Greek philosophers undermined their reliability, while the unity of the apostolic witness, and the witness of their successors, was evidence that Christianity came from God. “Since therefore it is impossible to learn anything true concerning religion…
In the aforementioned book, Magee enumerates the following parallels between Hegel and Hermeticism: 1. Hegel holds that God’s being involves “creation,” the subject matter of his Philosophy of Nature. Nature is a moment of God’s being. 2. Hegel holds that God is in some sense “completed” or actualized through the…
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