Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"The faithful use of sacraments, and indeed a fully sacramental view of creation, is vital to the life of the Church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are rites that directly shape the community and the Body, because they were given by God for that express purpose. A deficient practice of…
Weightlessness is fun. At the beginning of Gravity (2013) , we can see one astronaut dancing the Macarena and another one playing with his jetpack. They like it out there in the space. Apart from zero-gravity they can enjoy beautiful views, and even the silence is likable, although Matt Kowalski…
I recently went to a lunch that is more or less quarterly. About a dozen of us go. It is a lunch held in honor of a retired professor of religion and philosophy. I have been one of his acquaintances for more than 40 years. In his tenure as professor,…
Why Theopolis? Don't we already have seminaries and Bible colleges and other institutions for theological education? Why do we need another one? I get this question now and again. I ask myself this question even more often. What follows is a partial answer. Back in the 1990s, seminaries seemed to…
I think the logic of the Lutheran Reformation can be summarized in one sentence, attributed to Luther himself: "God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does." The first half of that statement is justification by faith . God doesn't need our works to satisfy his justice or…
If you are looking to start a fight with Christians, there is hardly a better subject to do so than the arts. Music, movies, paintings, and literature have provided no small battlegrounds for Christians to war. We are emotionally invested in the arts. A song, a book, or a film…
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A couple of illuminating quotations from Robert Letham’s fine new book, The Holy Trinity (P&R): Letham defends Origen against charges of heresy and proto-Arianism (while duly noting some of the troubling statements in Origen’s writings), and adds: “Origen is a research theologian, advancing ideas for consideration and discussion as well…
INTRODUCTION Jesus came to reveal the Father, and claims that He is capable of revealing the Father because ?I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?E(John 14:6-9). This notion of ?mutual indwelling?E(the technical term in theology is ?perichoresis?E is an important concern for John?s gospel, and it…
In his Teaching Company tapes on Chaucer, Seth Lehrer claims that the medievals lacked a conception of historical change, and that one of the key cultural effects of the Renaissance was to introduce the idea that things change. This at least needs to be qualified, if not rejected, for two…
It’s mighty hard to find apologists for Bolshevism these days, so I was surprised to find the following in the December 2 issue of the London Review of Books (in Neal Ascherson’s review of the recently republished books on Trotsky by Isaac Deutscher): The Bolshevik Revolution was more “authentic” and…
The book of Ruth is not merely about the individual characters, but about Israel, moving from the barrenness of the period of the judges toward the new birth of the monarchy. Naomi is the barren, bereft Israelite widow, who ends the book with a child her knees and with plenty…
Jesus charges in John 5 that the Jews seek glory from one another rather than the Father. It reminds me of a suggestion (I believe it came from Ken Myers) that the New York Review of Books should change its name to the New York Review of Each Other’s Books…
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