Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Reformers did not start out with a plan to found separated churches. Their goal was to reform the entire Latin church. In this they failed. The paradox is sharp, and we need to feel its point and its edge if we Protestants are to reckon honestly with our history…
Conversion is a turning from sin to Christ. Now, let's think about that. Does conversion happen only once in a lifetime, or does it happen many times? That is the question, I believe, that needs answering. From my experience, and from my understanding of the Bible and of Christianity, there…
Israel was supposed to be a priest to the nations (Ex. 19:6). Her water would cause their trees to grow. This was signified to all men when Israel came out of Egypt, for "then they came to Elim, where they were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and…
Rousing Soviet songs surround us as we pass through a gloomy gauntlet of titanic statues on our way to Kyiv’s Museum of the Great Patriotic War. My friends, a Polish and a Ukrainian pastor, remember the songs, which played incessantly on the radio during their childhood. The sculpture complex depicts…
This is the second installment of a two-part article. Click HERE to read Part I. The fourth perspective on ceremony is that of the action of the Lord's Supper. As we noted before, the inauguration of the Lord's Supper preceded its interpretation. Jesus did not at that point give an…
The best courses are those that make you see the Bible, the church, or the world differently. The recent Theopolis Architecture Course with Daniel Lee did exactly that. Architect Daniel Lee began the week with architectural theory, continued through the week taking students through a history of architectural practice, and…
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I rene Dingel's contribution to Lutheran Ecclesiastical Culture, 1550-1675 examines the role of controversy in the formation of Lutheran theology and practice. She examines several early intra-Lutheran controversies, among them the contest between the Gnesio-Lutherans led by Matthias Flacius and the “Philippists” led by Melanchthon. The former accused the latter…
I n a 1991 article in the Journal of Biblical Literature , John H. Wright asks what role 1 Chronicles 23–27 play in the Chronicler's account. The chapters look like a digression. David delivers an exhortation to Solomon (1 Chronicles 23) and makes him king (23:1), but that is followed…
D uring the early decades of the Reformation, there were efforts on all sides to reconcile Reformers and Catholics. Diarmaid MacCulloch ( Europe's House Divided ) describes the ecumenical efforts of the Archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von Wied. Von Wied was not a promising candidate to be a reform leader:…
A t the beginning of their Dialectic of Enlightenment , Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno define Enlightenment in terms of disenchantment of the world: “Enlightenment’s program was the disenchantment of the world. It wanted to dispel myths, to overthrow fantasy with knowledge. Bacon, ‘the father of experimental philosophy,' brought these…
T he Reformation and the Catholic reaction to it caused a massive split within Western Christendom, and further divisions proliferated from that original split. As Diarmaid MacCulloch points out ( Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700 ), that is only one part of the story: “The Protestant communities, which for a…
“T he most influential work of Italian spirituality in these years, the Beneficio di Cristo (published 1543, and apparently selling in tens of thousands before translation into other European languages), illustrates this continuing shapelessness—it was itself a somewhat shapeless work. It was written by a Cassinese Benedictine monk Don Benedetto…
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