Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When a certain Samaritan village refused Jesus’ attempt to visit, James and John asked Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven upon it. The allusion to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is evident, but, as the story shows, James’ and John’s thinking was entirely warped. Jesus rebuked…
In the first part of this essay, I considered paideia (formation)and mimesis (imitation) in the context of Aristotle’s virtue ethics and that of the New Testament. The overall concern is to realize how relevant is Aristotle’s ethics both to diagnosing our current malaise and to enculturing our children, though we…
In these posts I am inviting you into my philosophical reflection about integration , the absence of which we feel palpably in our fragmented world. My hope is for us to understand it more deeply, and to be ourselves reintegrated in the process. At this point in this extended inquiry…
It’s hard to imagine someone, centuries from now, mistaking our culture for a moral highpoint in the history of the West. Increasingly the news is dominated by school shootings, abusive policing, sexploitation of women, and increasing rates of suicide, addiction, and divorce. In response, the Left calls for regulations, surveillance,…
“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” (Ps. 34:17-18) God is listening. He is listening when we ask Him for financial provision,…
The allusions to Mt. Sinai in the transfiguration story point to Jesus as a new Moses and even more as Yahweh, the God who met Moses and Elijah on the mountain. The fact that Jesus, Moses, and Elijah spoke of Jesus’ “exodus” suggests that the mountain of transfiguration was intended…
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Though not so well-known as the debates over Darwinism, battles over the theological and cosmological import of the second law of thermodynamics played a large role in scientific and religious debates between 1870 and 1910. The debate was carried on partly by long-forgotten figures, but according to Helge Kragh’s 2008…
Rosalind Williams Notes on the Underground is an examination of 19th-century narratives about underground worlds, which she sees as prophetic texts: “Subterranean surroundings, whether real or imaginary, furnish a model of an artificial environment from which nature has been effectively banished. Human beings who live underground must use mechanical devices…
Peter Pomerantsev’s forthcoming Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is a grim, gripping tour through contemporary Russia. It’s a country that transformed overnight from a place “ready to sell anything” to a place where the superrich were able to buy anything they wanted. Pomerantsev says that no place had…
Enraged but exhausted in his fruitless attempts to destroy the woman, the dragon takes a stand on the seashore (Revelation 13:1/12:18). It’s a significant place for him to be,. Going back to Genesis 1:2, we have a creation image. At the beginning, the Spirit of Yahweh hovered over the waters…
Christoph Schwobel ( Recent Developments in Trinitarian Theology , 31-3) claims that because God is the “unoriginate originating cause” of all things created, He is “atemporally eternally present to every creature in every point in time of creation.” Yet, creation is the actualization of God’s “eternal will to be in…
Patrick Lee and Robert George offer a sharp critique of various forms of naturalist defense of traditional marriage in their recent Conjugal Union . Defining human nature as a “pattern,” they argue that “it is not obvious that acting unnaturally is always morally wrong.” Even if “unnatural” is taken to…
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