Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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Socrates claimed that the aim of philosophers was “to practice for dying and death,” and this means that the philosopher must be eager for death all his life and face his eventual death as with equanimity. Preparation for death involves dying before death, and this is a process of purification…
“Ritual” wasn’t a hooray term in early Protestantism. Catholics had their rituals and ceremoniousness, and Protestants had little interest. Yet it was a Scot, and a professor of divinity, Robertson Smith, who first focused scholarly attention on the phenomenon. As Jan Bremmer points out in his contribution to Ansichten griechischer…
Jonathan Arnold’s Sacred Music in Secular Society poses a question and offers an answer. Sacred music is popular: Witness the sales of chant albums, the popularity of the Tallis Scholars, the Sixteen, and other groups.The question is why music composed for liturgy or with liturgical interests, music once used in…
US Army Captain Benjamin Summers warns against hero-inflation in a piece in the Washington Post : “Many veterans deserve high praise for their heroism, but others of us do not. Infantrymen who put their lives on the line for a mission, aircrews who flew into harm’s way to evacuate the…
Abraham is the first man in the Bible who is called a “prophet” (Genesis 20:7). A prophet, Abraham Heschel pointed out, is a member of Yahweh’s council, an officer of the court who listens in on the proceedings and has the privilege of the floor. Fittingly, Abraham is called “prophet”…
My friends at Romans Road Media have posted a brief essay of mine on the penetration of Christianity into Germanic literature. While you’re there, check out some of the educational resources, especially the video courses on Old Western Culture taught by Wes Calihan.
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