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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Many have summarized the intellectual history of Greece as an evolution from the mythos to logos . William Nestle’s Vom Mythos zum Logos (1940) is the classical statement of this reading. On the opening page, Nestle claims mythos and logos are “the two poles between which man’s mental life oscillates.…
John Paul II ( Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body , 181-5) argues from Genesis that “‘alone,’ the man does not completely realize [his] essence.” Without the woman, Adam does not possess the “basic conditions that make it possible to exist in a relation of…
Wes Baker of Peru Mission began his Theopolis Easter Term lectures with a discussion of the connection between the two baptisms in Matthew’s gospel. In Matthew 3, John baptizes Jesus, as the Father speaks from heaven and the Spirit descends in the form of a dove. Through His baptism, Jesus’…
I wrote this essay for FirstThings.com shortly after my first trip to Ukraine in 2013 . Rousing Soviet songs surround us as we pass through a gloomy gauntlet of titanic statues on our way to Kyiv’s Museum of the Great Patriotic War. My friends, a Polish and a Ukrainian pastor,…
Paul taught Christians to expect a lot from the gospel, politically as well as personally. He taught that the crucifixion of Jesus had a direct impact on the powers-that-be. He told the Colossians that Jesus went to the cross as the firstborn¯the only-begotten of the Father, the new Israel, the…
The following is a revised version of a portion of an essay that originally appeared as a part of a Theopolis Conversation on masculinity . On many specifics, I agree with Christians who today advocate for patriarchy. Scripture teaches that men are shepherds in churches and husbands are heads of…
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