Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
What is below is fairly self-explanatory. This is an exchange I had with a local liberal clergyman on the subject of abortion. The circumstances of the debate are included in the text itself. I initially e-mailed this out to a list of clergy in our city after a local (and…
The seemingly humdrum parts of the Bible often hide overlooked wisdom. Take, for example, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Their stories aren't exactly the most gripping or memorable. They are far less concrete than, say, the story of the Exodus. No one in Ezra is stricken blind or devoured…
For most of the past century, philosophical perspectives on life in the western world have been overtly grim and pessimistic. The optimism of the Enlightenment, generated by confidence in the scientific method and the potential of an increasingly civilized humanity to redress the evils of the world, was shattered by…
Chiastic structures are found all over the Bible, and in recent decades commentators have become more adept at spotting them. But identifying these literary structures is only part of the challenge. There remains the challenge of understanding what they mean. Part of the answer is found in the recognition that…
Part 1 can be found HERE . Clearly, more than just getting worship right is important in changing the world, but since worship is the central act of God’s people, performed on the first day of the week at the center of the world before the very face of God,…
“Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed.” ( Luke 11:27 ) Arguing for Christian morality in a secular society is difficult. A culture which accepts evolutionary dogma has no intellectual place — or inherent desire — for absolute morality, since it believes morality…
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T he Hebrew word ma’al is a key term in Chronicles. It means “act of unfaithfulness” or “sacrilege,” and is the sin that leads to Saul's fall (he ma’aled a ma’al , 1 Chronicles 10:13) and to the exile of Judah, whose officials and priests ma’aled a ma’al (2 Chronicles…
M y End of Protestantism (the book) deals with a number of the questions Doug Wilson raises in his brief review . Here I correct several of Doug’s misrepresentations and clarify some points, but mainly point to fuller discussions in the book. First, on John 17: Doug says that I’m…
W riting in The Australian , Paul Kelly views the state of American politics from Down Under. He gets some things wrong, I think, but he also nails some of the cultural and political toxins of which the 2016 Presidential debate is symptomatic. He lays much of the blame on…
I n her The Body in Pain , Elaine Scarry describes the “aversiveness” of our experience of pain. By that, she means that pain is sheerly negative, experienced as something set against us. Even though it is in us, it’s not us. Scarry writes: The first, the most essential, aspect…
A ge obliterates and collapses our world, writes Elaine Scarry in The Body in Pain (32-3): “the body works to obliterate the world and self of the old person. Something of this world dissolution is already at work even in the tendency of those in late middle age, no longer…
I n several places in Scripture, idols are characterized by their sensory deprivation (Psalms 115; 135). They have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear prayer, noses but cannot smell incense of sacrifice. By implication, Yahweh the living God can do all these things. Elaine Scarry points out (…
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