Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
If 1 Chronicles were a movie, it would begin with two hours and forty-five minutes of credits: Name after name scrolling across the screen, most of them (as far as we’re concerned) obscurities and nonentities and unknowns, forgotten fathers and sons and mighty men; all the bit players in the…
Let me locate myself. I’m sitting on a sand dune, three hundred feet above the blue-as-a-swimmer-crab water of Lake Michigan. I’m so high above the surface that the sound of the waves flopping onto the beach is as quiet as wind easing through a screen door. Around me are several…
My title is too grand. What I offer here falls far short of a full description of poetry. I barely offer a definition. A more accurate title would be “Axioms and Suspicions About Poetry.” Axioms first. I have three of them. The first is the closest I can come to…
In his book In Defense of Food Michael Pollan does just what the title suggests, he defends food. Pollan argues that the presupposition behind modern food science, or “nutritionism” as he calls it, is that humans don’t need food, they need nutrients. To be sure, modern science is not yet…
The early church took possession of the Roman Empire within a few centuries, largely because she ministered sacrificially in word and deed. The church provided services and care that the empire and pagan religions could not in times of crisis. The faithful witness of those serving Christians bore great fruit…
My title, “The Original Murder” will be understood by many readers, if not almost all, to refer to Cain’s murder of Abel, but I have in mind the very first murder, the one which Jesus pointed to when He said that Satan was a murderer “from the beginning.” “You are…
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Two groups rush away from Jesus' empty tomb. Both of them have news. The women came to the tomb looking for Jesus, but now they have heard the angel’s announcement that Jesus is risen, and obey the angel’s command to go to the disciples and announce the resurrection to them.…
So Kobe's done, going out in grand style with 60 points as he led the Lakers to a comeback win. Few sports stars go out with as much fanfare, or do as well in playing up to the hype. But the debate about Kobe's greatness will continue, and his last…
America has a unique architecture, indebted to our unique religious makeup. In a 1982 article, Thomas Beeby notes that the communal experiments of early Puritans, and later of Quakers, Shakers, Moravians, and Pietists provided “paradigms of puritanical Protestant architectural thought” (essay reprinted in The Religious Imagination in Modern and Contemporary…
Patrick Gray's Paul as a Problem in History and Culture is a wide-ranging study of anti-Paulinism. Biblical scholars are familiar with anti-Paulists who charge that Paul betrayed the message and life of Jesus when he founded Christianity. But the attacks on Paul are ancient and medieval as well as modern,…
In his forthcoming, massive Reformations , Carlos M.N. Eire summarizes the conflicts between Philippists and Gnesio-Lutherans following Luther's death in 1546. Eire writes, “The most pressing issue in 1548 concerned how much accommodation to Catholicism any Lutheran should be willing to make. Melanchthon's response to the Augsburg Interim . .…
The genealogy of the priestly tribe of Levi (1 Chronicles 6) stands at the chiastic center of the genealogies of 1 Chronicles. At the beginning of that tribal genealogy is a list of the descendants of Aaron the first high priest, framed by references to the three sons of Levi…
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