Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In my last essay, we saw how consumer culture has gutted the familial category necessary to understand the church. When a consumer visits a church, he expects another service-provider, such as a hospital or a restaurant. He doesn’t understand the role of men in ministry, and thus, not the role…
First time visitors to our church sometimes express their surprise that children, even the youngest, participate with their parents in the entire worship service. Many congregations created an expectation for the parents (and children) of Sunday School or Child Care being available during the entire worship service or during the…
Quantifying the Love of God “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” ~ John 3:16 This most beloved verse in all the Bible was spoken by the Savior himself to Nicodemus. As…
While The Lord’s Prayer enjoys wide recognition throughout the Church, its richness and depth may be unrealized due to a lesser familiarity with, what I will argue is, its primary inspiration: the Tabernacle. There, Christ’s intent can rightly be discerned. The Prayer’s methodological correction to the Jews and Gentiles wasn’t…
The Consumption of the Covenant Idea of the Church Last time we saw consumerism, having canalized its attitudes in our culture, shapes what the consumer sees when he or she steps into a church. Here, we’ll see how it has eviscerated the covenant and familial ideas necessary to understand the…
The ignoble Jayber Crow can stir your appetite for the noble. It’s the simplicity of a good ol’ Port William boy that builds the charm of the book. In fact, the elitists in Port William receive the harshest blows and severest outcomes, as they should. But before delving into the…
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INTRODUCTION This section of Proverbs focuses on issues of image, wealth, work, and treatment of employees (vv. 8-12), and ends with two verses that deal again with the use of the tongue (vv. 13-14). The final verses connect this section to the preceding section of this chapter (12:1-7). Thus, the…
The influence of Hamlet, the play and the character, on modern literature is vast. Consider Hamlet as model for Prufrock: Zulfikar Ghose says the “I am not Hamlet” in Eliot’s Prufrock may be literal or ironic, but then adds: “the more one ponders the language of ‘Prufrock’ and of Hamlet…
Herman Melville’s Pierre (1852) was, to put it mildly, not warmly received by critics. One newspaper headlined its review with “HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY” and another reviewer complained that Melville’s fancy was diseased. Critics are divided over whether it is a grand failure or simply a failure. Updike caught the tone…
Bauman distinguishes between the “legislative” notion of reason found in Kant and other Enlightenment figures and the “interpretive” rationality that characterizes much postmodern thought. The shift from the former to the latter was not accomplished all at once. Schleiermacher, for all importance in the rise of hermeneutics, was still aiming…
The architectural model of building a structure of thought on “foundations” is among the metaphors employed by modern thinkers, and in this as in other areas there was a close alliance of philosophy and political action. Bauman notes that this was particularly evident in various utopian writers of the modern…
“Postmodernity,” writes Zygmunt Bauman in his 1992 Intimations of Postmodernity , “means many different things to many different people. It may mean a building that arrogantly flaunts the ‘orders’ prescribing what fits what and what should be kept strictly out to preserve the functional logic of steel, glass and concrete.…
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