Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt…
Part 5: Laying New Foundations in a Dying World As I mentioned above, the history of Israel involved several centuries as a church-without-a-culture, and then several centuries as a culture-without-a-city. To be sure, there was an informal culture around the church of the Patriarchs, but the civilization of free farmers…
In the Reformation Tradition we baptize both professing believers and their children. In the case of infants it is now commonly insisted that this is done because the children are already in covenant with God. Baptism is a sign and seal of a previously existing reality. Despite the popularity of…
Concerning Sex & the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the loaf of bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one loaf, we who are many…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato, virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the mumbo-jumbo and — presto! — the sacraments confer…
In 27.2, the Westminster Confession says that because of the “spiritual relation” between sacraments and the things they represent, “the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.” Applied to baptism, this means that when the Bible says that we are baptized into Christ (Rom. 6), it…
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If the fathers have already explained the Scriptures, Andrew of St. Victor asked, why do I need to? He answered that truth dwells “deep” and “screens herself from mortal sight.” There is always more truth to dig up because truth “hides, yet so as never wholly to be hidden. Careful…
England’s economy in Austen’s time was still dominated by land ownership. Land was the most settled and permanent form of wealth, and writers like Coleridge and Burke asserted that landownership formed a “natural” governing class that had a physical stake in the nation. In 1710, Parliament enacted property qualifications for…
In 1767, one N. Foster wrote, “In England the several ranks of men slide into each other almost imperceptibly, and a spirit of equality runs through every part of their constitution. Hence arises a strong emulation in all the several stations and conditions to vie with each other; and the…
In the 1982 symposium, The Birh of a Consumer Society , Neil McKendrick identifies some of the chief features of the demand-side of the social and economic of the 18th century. What did it mean for England to become a “consumer society”? 1. More people than ever could acquire material…
Samuel Johnson recognized the character of avertising quite early. he noted in 1761 that “advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic.” And he saw that…
Seen in the advertising section of many 18th-century English newspapers: “a fine young breast of milk willing to enter a gentleman’s household.” Presumably attached to a wet nurse. And an advertisement for a bed that “at the head . . . in the full centre front, appears sparkling with electrical…
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