Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his…
When it comes to the interpretation of Shakespeare, Harold Bloom is my favorite enemy. His writing is brilliant, his knowledge of things Shakespearean encyclopedic, and the insights he offers may puzzle, startle, or amaze, but they always educate. How then can he be an enemy? Because his anti-Christian bias is…
Theopolis President Peter Leithart spent the last week of March lecturing on worship and sacraments in England. He delivered four lectures on liturgy in Bolton, a town north of Manchester, arguing that Christian worship must be worship fit for the king and fit for the kingdom that has come in…
When we think about eschatology, we think immediately of Daniel, of Matthew 24-25, of 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Thessalonians 2, and of course of Revelation. We don’t, I suspect, think about Genesis. Perhaps Genesis 3:15, with its promise of the woman’s seed, would come to mind. So might the…
Alexander Schmemann in his book, Of Water and the Spirit, expounds the question that appears in nearly all the older baptismal liturgies, “Do you renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world and all sinful lusts of the flesh.” This renunciation, according to…
Franklin Graham recently posted the following statement on his Facebook page: “Listen up—Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and everybody else. Most police shootings can be avoided. It comes down to respect for authority and obedience. If a police officer tells you to stop, you stop. If a police officer tells you to…
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Sheldrake ( The Science Delusion , 10-12) explains why physicalism - the hope that physics will finally vindicate materialism - is doomed. One reason is the “Cosmological Anthropic Principle,” which claims that “if the laws and constants of nature had been slightly different at the moment of the Big Bang,…
During his PhD research, Rupert Sheldrake ( The Science Delusion , 1-2) made an original discovery about plant cells: “dying cells play a major part in the regulation of plant growth, releasing the plant hormone auxin as they break down in the process of ‘programmed cell death.’ Inside the growing…
Constantine permitted transfer of legal cases from civil to ecclesiastical courts, and also permitted ministers to manumit slaves. Both, Potter says ( Constantine the Emperor , 181 ), were steps that effectively turned clergy into civic authorities. On the first decision, Potter notes that “The main problem with Constantine’s decision,…
TD Barnes has vigorously contested popular ideas of the Edict of Milan: It was not issued in Milan and didn’t affect Italy; it didn’t legalize Christianity, which was already legal; it was not an edict. This can leave the impression that the declaration of Licinius on June 13, 313 was…
Potter ( Constantine the Emperor , 95) asks what Constantine was doing during the great persecution. His answers are speculative; we don’t and can’t know for sure, since Constantine’s feelings and thoughts were never recorded. But it is a worthwhile speculation: “He was a visible member of the court; many…
David Potter’s Constantine the Emperor has many virtues. Potter is hugely well-informed about Roman history, and is able to place Constantine in his context like few others. His discussion of Diocletian’s “interventionist” policy (his Price Edict and his edicts regarding Christianity) is superb, as is his sense of the limits…
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