Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"The faithful use of sacraments, and indeed a fully sacramental view of creation, is vital to the life of the Church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are rites that directly shape the community and the Body, because they were given by God for that express purpose. A deficient practice of…
Weightlessness is fun. At the beginning of Gravity (2013) , we can see one astronaut dancing the Macarena and another one playing with his jetpack. They like it out there in the space. Apart from zero-gravity they can enjoy beautiful views, and even the silence is likable, although Matt Kowalski…
I recently went to a lunch that is more or less quarterly. About a dozen of us go. It is a lunch held in honor of a retired professor of religion and philosophy. I have been one of his acquaintances for more than 40 years. In his tenure as professor,…
Why Theopolis? Don't we already have seminaries and Bible colleges and other institutions for theological education? Why do we need another one? I get this question now and again. I ask myself this question even more often. What follows is a partial answer. Back in the 1990s, seminaries seemed to…
I think the logic of the Lutheran Reformation can be summarized in one sentence, attributed to Luther himself: "God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does." The first half of that statement is justification by faith . God doesn't need our works to satisfy his justice or…
If you are looking to start a fight with Christians, there is hardly a better subject to do so than the arts. Music, movies, paintings, and literature have provided no small battlegrounds for Christians to war. We are emotionally invested in the arts. A song, a book, or a film…
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In an analysis of the work of Meredith Kline, John Frame offers this neat formulation of the relation of faith, works, and reward: “Today we receive salvation by faith alone, apart from works. But that faith must be a living, working faith, if it is true faith (Jms. 2:14-26). As…
William Cavanaugh’s presentation at the Wheaton Theology Conference was, as one would expect, challenging and provocative. He asked questions about corporate persons in contemporary law, tracing the background of the idea in the Bible and in medieval thought, but focusing attention on the business corporation as corporate person in market…
Anglican Archbishop David Gitari ended his talk at the Wheaton Theology Conference with a neat illustration of the difference between doing mercy and confronting power. He used the example of a factory where many workers were injured. Wanting to help, a church arranged to have an ambulance on call at…
Everyone today wants to talk about the cruciformity of Christian politics. Much to the good there. But, despite narrative theology and NT Wright and everything, there’s an odd abstraction of the cross from the rest of the gospel narrative. Cruciform politics is often translated as a politics of sympathy and…
Spirit - that is, the human person - cannot be conceived simply by the sexual union of a man and woman. It is “the work of God Himself” ( Love and Responsibility , 55). Sex thus participates in God’s ongoing creation of persons, a creation that must, John Paul II…
In spite of its intentions, what John Paul II calls “sexual puritanism” or “rigorism” ends up cozy with utilitarianism, the notion that persons can be used as means to achieve certain egocentric ends ( Love and Responsibility ). According to the “puritanical” view, “the Creator Himself uses persons as means…
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