Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I live in an area where Mardi Gras is in full swing, and I can remember from my upbringing that Fat Tuesday was a last ditch effort at debauchery before the pseudo-spiritual practice of “giving something up for Lent” really began. In my youth I would give up some kind…
Part 1: Observations from the Texts (Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22, Luke 5:33-39) The precipitating context for the new wine/old wineskins discussion is people asking Jesus why His disciples did not fast. His immediate answer is that you can’t get the friends of the groom to fast at the bachelor party…
Simply, “progress” means to move forward. In that sense, a slug can progress from one end of the sidewalk to the other. But for us in twenty-first century America, progress means something else. For us, it is almost a synonym for goodness. The slug can only “progress” if the other…
I have the privilege of being able to counsel a lot of women who are seeking abortions. I can tell you that the majority of them are seeking to end their pregnancies not because they feel like it would be a fun thing to do, but because they are scared…
Last night, along with a few online friends, I watched this debate on the meaning of life between William Lane Craig, Rebecca Goldstein, and Jordan Peterson, hosted by Wycliffe College. While watching it, and reflecting upon Peterson’s work more generally (about which I’ve written in the past ), I was…
I’m glad to have been invited to contribute regularly to the Theopolis Institute website. Thank you, readers, for welcoming and joining what I hope will be a venture of integration. Integration itself is what I want to explore. And for me personally, this is the shape of my current integrative…
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Adam Kuper reviewed Emmanuelle Loyer's Claude Levi-Strauss in a 2016 issue of the TLS . A few noteworthy tidbits. It's intriguing that the great classifier of kin relations should come from a densely interconnected family: "Lévi-Strauss grew up in a densely intermarried family circle made up exclusively of cultivated Parisian…
Adrian Vermeule has a brilliant review of Ryszard Legutko's Demon in Democracy . He begins with Tocqueville's observation that the French Revolution "developed into a species of religion" but one without ritual. Legutko, and Vermeule following him, dissent: "The Revolution’s descendants not only possess a theology and eschatology, but a…
In an essay on covenant as a political concept , Daniel Elazar briefly traces the development of covenant, and its relation to natural law, from Philo to Spinoza. Reformed theorists like Althusius loom large, what with their recovery and expansion of the biblical conception of "covenant." Elazar writes, "The federal…
How did everything get politicized - every choice of a favorite beer, every style decision, every nook and cranny of everyday life? Bruce Schulman blames it on Rolling Stone magazine. As he writes, "/the magazine embraced the countercultural ideal of authenticity — living life to the fullest, right now, within…
Albanian isn't usually considered an important literary language, but Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare explained in an interview with the Paris Review how the language merges classical and modern forms of literary expression: "Albanian is simply an extraordinary means of expression—rich, malleable, adaptable. As I have said in my latest novel,…
Infants and toddlers can’t dress, feed, or transport themselves. Yet in the paradoxical world of the Bible, their very weakness makes them strong. One Child, the Davidic one with the government on His shoulders, is strong enough to overthrow Satan. As a prep for Advent, sing this once a day,…
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