Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Raising children in a world that is increasingly rebellious against God-given gender is quite a challenge. I believe that every generation has their own unique challenges to face, and LGBTQ is ours. It is the movement that steals our terminology (love, kindness, community) and our symbol of promise (the rainbow)…
While there are many tricky verses in the Bible, it’s clear that some of them were never intended to give us so much trouble. Paul’s mysterious mention of the “restrainer” in 2 Thessalonians 2 is a perfect example, but perhaps we have been looking at it the wrong way. Reading…
A common assumption of those most critical of “Christian nationalism” is that such a conception is inherently racist and opposed to the universal nature of the Christian faith. Many argue that Christian nationalism undermines a catholic sensibility by tethering Christianity to the particularities of the nation, and usually to a…
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul speaks of those who “trouble” their congregations: “[T]here are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ” (1:7). 1 The word “trouble” caught my attention here, because in 1 Kings 18:17, King Ahab refers to Elijah the prophet as…
Many Christians find themselves working for businesses or corporations that encourage compliance with the moral revolution. Perhaps their company wants them to participate in gay pride month. Perhaps they require employees to use the preferred gender pronouns of their co-workers. Or maybe they require them to sign a statement affirming…
“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.” – Matthew 11:18-19 When conservative…
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A remarkable statement of Calvin’s, from Institutes 4.14.18: speaking of the tree of knowledge and of the rainbow, Calvin says that these are given new being by the word of God that designates them as signs or testimonies. Then this Et antea quidem arbor erat arbor, arcus arcus; ubi inscripta…
In Nussbaum’s treatment, “tragic” and “Aristotelian” conceptions of moral luck and the fragility of the good life are at one. In excluding poets, Plato not only kept certain forms of literature at bay, but was protecting against the tragic potential of life. For Plato, “the best and most valuable things…
Nussbaum’s problematic of moral luck is quite intriguing: A good man is like a tree, she says at the beginning, quoting Pindar. But that means that the good man is dependent for his flourishing on all kinds of things beyond his control ?Erainfall, winds, sun, and so on and on.…
Should theology agree with the sophist critique of nomos ? It would seem so, as Thomas would say: The institutions of society are the product of human construction, and the claim that they are rooted in “nature” is a rhetorical device. It is human all the way down. If it…
Years ago, I read David Landes’s Prometheus Unbound for a class in economic history, and I can still remember the fascination I experienced at his descriptions of the steel industry (though details are sadly forgotten). In his recent Wealth and Poverty of Nations , Landes, among many other things, spends…
There is further evidence concerning the meaning of nomos in Greek culture, coming from Martha Nussbaum’s Fragility of Goodness . In a discussion of Euripides’s Hecuba , Nussbaum points out that Polyxena, Hecuba’s daughter who is offered as a human sacrifice by the Greeks to appease the shade of Achilles,…
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