Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Inspired by the “Moscow Mood” Debate In a shocking 1961 study, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram would don an official-looking white lab coat and tell a volunteer to administer increasing shocks to another “volunteer” in an adjacent room strapped into an “electric chair” just out of sight. The shocks were incrementally…
My title and the substance of the article are borrowed from a section of David Wenham’s excellent book, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? I am appropriating ideas from the pages in his book which address the question, “Why Does Paul refer to Jesus’ Life and Ministry so…
Some of us may be familiar with the notion that the epistle of James is like a New Testament version of Proverbs or other wisdom literature. According to this line of thinking, the epistle of James (together with the other wisdom literature) is basically a collection of timeless sayings without…
This summer I started walking a long trail that ran north from our home. On my best days, I would walk a total of five miles at a brisk pace. This trail follows the power lines that serve a significant portion of North Dallas and stretches far past the two…
I am an Australian. I went to the American Academy of Religion mega-fest last year to meet up with some friends, to present a paper at a ‘science and religion’ panel, and to marvel at the sheer scale of how Americans do things. It was quite a ride. Looking at…
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 We evangelicals do not often understand the roles of men and women in ministry. Because our consumerist culture has gutted the notion of family as it was historically understood, all Biblical passages about women in church ministry (a familial organism) are almost incomprehensible to…
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Perhaps Sigurd, like Orestes, marks the beginning of a new order. Before Sigurd, the only absolute loyalties in the world of the Volsungs were family loyalties, loyalties of blood. Signy has no loyalty to her husband and encourages Sigmund to kill her sons. But Sigurd seems as loyal to his…
In Italy, there is a raging debate over a judge’s ruling that crucifixes need to be removed from schools. Seems that Europe, where religion (or religions) is still often a part of government education and where state churches still exist, is beginning to play catch up with American secularism.
In the introduction to his translation of the Volsung Saga, Jesse Byock points out that the scene of Sigurd slaying the dragon was employed on numerous churches throughout Scandinavian countries. The Christological dimensions of a dragon-slayer are obvious, but there is even more going on with Sigurd: He not only…
In an essay on “The Hermeneutics of Difference” in a volume edited by Merold Westphal, Garrett Green offers this helpful summary of Derrida’s conception of supplement: “The fundamental hermeneutical situation in which we all find ourselves as users of signs, which Derrida indicates by the word DIFFERANCE, means that no…
From Dr. Johnson’s dictionary, a definition of “Oats”: “A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”
In his book “Is There A Meaning in This Text?” Kevin Vanhoozer explains Derrida’s dictum that “there is nothing outside the text” by saying that everything is part of a signifying system or classification system that is constituted by differences. He offers this illuminating illustration: “a Ford has its particular…
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