Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Peter Leithart recently wrote on his blog about the verse from Revelation 13, "Who is able to wage war with the beast?" and I could hardly help but take special notice. These were exactly the words l had had echoing about in my own head recently. Of course the answer…
I confess to mixed feelings about Jon Stewart. There’s a great deal about his work that I don’t particularly like. I don’t like his profanity, the worst of which is mercifully bleeped out before it makes it onto the YouTube clips that are my main source of snippets. I certainly…
The Marriage Pledge , authored by Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz and unveiled by First Things editor R. R. Reno, argues that the time has come for Christian pastors to rend themselves away from civil marriage. The Pledge argues that the fact that many states are now allowing same sex…
Psalm 28 has an overall rhetorical structure that looks like this: lines 1-16, prayer to Yahweh lines 17-20, talk about the wicked lines 21-27, talk about Yahweh (center of psalm) lines 28-29, talk about the anointed people lines 30-33, prayer to Yahweh As is so often the case, the enemies…
A river arises in Eden, flows through the sanctuary-garden, and waters the world downstream. A spring springs up from beneath the throne of God in the temple, rushes over the threshold, and then out to the land, toward the Sea of Salt, where it empties and turns brackish water sweet.…
On Wednesday evening, November 19, Justin Holcomb, Canon for Vocations in the Episcopal Diocese of South Florida and co-founder of REST (Real Escape from the Sex Trade) was a guest of the Theopolis Institute for a lecture on sex trafficking, given at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Birmingham. Dr. Holcomb's lecture began…
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1 Chronicles 11–12 form a unit, framed by references to David’s coronation ceremony at Hebron: A. Gathering at Hebron, conquest of Jerusalem, 11:1–10 B. David’s followers while a fugitive, 11:11–47 B'. David’s host at Ziklag, 12:1–22 A’. Coronation festival at Hebron, 12:23–40 11:1-10 is itself framed by references to “all…
I n a 2014 piece published in First Things , I offered a “wish list” for Protestant churches, a checklist for a future catholic Protestantism. The wish list doesn't cover everything. It doesn't mention those things that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, already do, often exceedingly well, things like missions and evangelism…
D ante is moving through the circle of the lustful (Comedy, Canto 5) and sees a host of classical lovers. Among them is Semiramis, less famous than Dido or Cleopatra, but an exceedingly important illustration of how lust misshapes language and law. Rodney Payton explains ( A Modern Reader’s Guide…
E xplaining the moral structure of hell in Canto 11 of Dante’s Comedy , Virgil lays out three general categories of sin: incontinence, malice, and mad bestiality (lines 83-4). That’s not quite what we expect, or what most commentators see. It seems more like incontinence, violence, and fraud. Incontinent sins…
R odney Payton ( Modern Reader’s Guide to Dante’s Inferno , 88–89) observes that “Dante’s vocabulary is rich in words denoting water,” including “the Italian words for water, river, little river, bog, marsh, stream, pond, slough, fount, and waves, at lest. In many cases the nouns are modified by adjectives…
A ntonio of Venice is inexplicable sad. So is Portia of Belmont, her “little body . . . aweary of this great world” ( Merchant of Venice 2.1). Antonio and Portia have all that they could want. They aren’t anxious about money; neither is pining for love. Why so sad?…
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