Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The corona virus hit Western society like a Biblical plague — almost. Biblical plagues were actually much more devastating. Still, as Peter Leithart describes the present situation, it is a judgment from God, because the disease itself together with our political solutions brought about a social situation that fits Deuteronomy’s…
“The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?” - Richard Dawkins One cannot be a Christian college president or seminary trustee (your essayist is both) without wondering if Richard Dawkins’s notorious take-down of theology…
Nearly every church that I am aware of has adopted differing practices since the recent virus scare began. Some churches continued to meet during the state lock downs, and other churches left their building empty, meeting online through various video conference technologies. Some churches have gone back to life as…
Fear is an inseparable companion of human life. We are afraid of illness and death, poverty and cataclysms, rejection and betrayal, failure and shame. We are afraid of the unknown, so in a sense we are afraid of the future and life itself. Unless we live in the illusory belief…
In the title above, I put the word “heresies” in quotation marks because I would prefer that the word “heresy” be confined to erroneous beliefs about the Trinity and the Person of Christ, rather than be used broadly to describe any view that might be considered an error. 1 At…
I’ve been trying to work out why I’m feeling existentially disconnected from CoV-19-related fears. I’m taking it seriously, but it’s not registering in any deeply personal way. Partly it’s that my routines are largely undisrupted. But as I reflect on people’s reactions I think there’s more, because a lot of…
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Evangelicals generally classify interpretations of Revelation as futurist, historicist, idealist, or preterist. For futurists, the book of Revelation describes the events leading up to the end of the space-time universe, the final coming of Jesus. Futurist interpretations need not be pre-millennial, but they often are. Historicist read Revelation as an…
Our head is the governing part of our body. We think in our brains, and our brains send signals through the nervous system to the rest of our bodies. It's no accident that “head” is an ancient and still current symbol of authority and rule: Head coach, Head of School,…
Commentators have used social scientific theories and models to try to explicate the social setting of biblical books and their authors. Bruce Malina has been a leading figure in applying these models to Revelation. We can get the general idea from his Social Science Commentary on Revelation , co-authored with…
Atonement theories abound. Christus Victor says Jesus triumphed over Satan; sacrificial theories say that Jesus offered Himself as a vicarious sacrifice; recently, a number of theologians have emphasized the corporate, ecclesial dimensions of the atonement. All true. We don't need to choose among them. Revelation 12:11 makes that plain: “They…
I previously commented on RJ Snell's The Perspective of Love , which offers “natural law in a new mode.” Snell was recently interviewed by Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio, and the interviewed revealed an important feature of Snell's natural law theory - its formalism. Snell emphasized that natural law…
At the center of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches about three duties of Jewish piety – alms, prayer, and fasting. Regarding the last, He says, “when you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites, for they render their faces unrecognizable in order to be…
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