Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
“13th of July, 4:50 pm. I'm sorry. I know that means little at this point, but I am. I tried, I think you would all agree that I tried. To be true, to be strong, to be kind, to love, to be right. But I wasn't. And I know you…
CS Lewis's 1948 essay on “Priestesses in the Church” strikes a reader today as simultaneously quaintly naive and trenchantly prescient. The naive part comes near the beginning, where Lewis describes the decision to take “a revolutionary step.” It would “cut ourselves off from the Christian past and to widen the…
Imagine a version of the Lord of the Rings beginning with Sauron riding into the Shire and lopping off heads in a mad search for the ring, driving Frodo to flight from the beginning, helter-skelter and harried. While, no doubt, some Hollywood exec is at this moment scrambling to reboot…
A Communist Confession of Faith states that the aim of the Communists is “to organize society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom and without thereby infringing the basic conditions of this society.” This aim can…
The story of the Fall enjoys a peculiar place in Christian thought. Together with the creation account in the two chapters that precede it, it is one of the few Old Testament narratives consistently to escape the relative neglect the Hebrew Scriptures often suffer. While the characters of Abraham, Moses,…
In the previous essay, we saw that fire is a work of the Holy Spirit. The two are related so closely that they cannot be separated. Now we turn our attention to the Spirit's relationship to water. Many have understood Spirit baptism to be a dry baptism, one that is…
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Peter Matheson ( Rhetoric of Reformation ) recognizes that polemic is “both necessary and useful” (8). It enables underdogs to gain a foothold, and “enables us to see things as they are. Its caricatures are nearer to the truth than the smooth rhetoric and facile images beloved of politician, businessman…
2 Chronicles 3-4, the Chronicler's account of the temple, uses the phrase “left and right” several times. Jachin and Boaz, the two pillars, are “left and right” at the porch (3:17). Ten basins are set up in two groups of five on the left and right of the court (4:6).…
In her study of Leviticus as Literature , Mary Douglas notes the “house that Jack built” quality of the Levitical descriptions of sacrifice. Priests put animal parts on the wood that is on the fire that is on the altar. Douglas takes this as a sign that Leviticus describes sacrifice…
I n a famous essay on “rites of violence” in sixteenth-century France, Natalie Zemon Davis argued that one motivation behind mob violence was the desire to purge “the community of dreaded pollution. The word ‘pollution' is often on the lips of the violent, and the concept serves well to sum…
T he Chronicler's account of the construction of Solomon's temple (2 Chronicles 3:1-5:1) follows the creation week of Genesis 1 in general and in specific details. In general, the account moves from a description of the dimensions, materials and adornments of the three zones of the temple (porch, palace, most…
R obert Scribner doesn't think Protestantism “disenchanted” the world. Reformers did attack certain forms of medieval “magic.” They rejected “sacramentals,” which were “functional” rituals that could be used as protection against devils. This didn't produce a “buffered” world, impervious to outside influence. No one surpassed Luther in his obsession with…
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