Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My good friend, Jason Ewert, recently posted a review of Pastor Douglas Wilson’s book, Against the Church . Jason correctly notes that Pastor Wilson’s main pastoral motivation in writing this book is to combat dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a real problem in Reformed churches that celebrate the primacy of…
At the church I pastor, we have four servers who distribute the communion elements to the congregation, and I distribute the elements to those in the foyer and nursery. The servers and I do not partake of the bread and wine until the congregation is served first. As this has…
We at Trinity House believe that the church ought to raise and train her future pastors. Part of that training may be carried out by specialized institutions like Trinity House, but the church and her leaders are ultimately responsible for that training. To encourage churches to assume that responsibility, Trinity…
Sandra Jacobs's The Body as Property examines the role of physical disfigurement in the Hebrew Bible, with focus on the Torah, and more specifically on the (fictitious) Priestly document, P. After an introduction laying out a rationale for the comparative method that guides her research, she explores circumcision, the use…
Yahweh saves. That’s what Isaiah’s name means, and that’s what Isaiah’s prophecy is about. Yah saves Judah when Aram and Israel pressure her. He saves Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege. He brings Judah back from the grave of Babylonian exile. But this triumphant message of Isaiah fizzles. The last few…
Are apostasy and assurance mutually exclusive? Some seem to think so. But let’s consider this a bit: No Reformed man would ever say that a man who is “saved” today will be safe forever no matter what . Rather we say, “your sins are forgiven, now, walk faithfully, glorify the…
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Whitney (the book is Francis Bacon and Modernity , Yale, 1986) offers some additional meditations on the meaning of “modern” particularly as it relates to Bacon. He defines modernity in terms of the tension between innovation and tradition, the frustration that arises from the revolutionary’s effort to start afresh and…
Whitney on Bacon again: “Reform invites analogy and multiple levels of meaning as it variously connects old and new; it exposes the poverty of brute facts by, for one thing, fixing knowledge in a hierarchy of literary kinds or genres. Reformative visions in history grow in part out of biblical…
In his defense of the legitimacy of the modern age, Hans Blumenberg attempts to pry apart the legitimate kernel ideas of modernity from the illegitimate, mostly medieval and superstitious, husks by which the kernel ideas were often expressed. Whether this works for any early modern thinker, it does not work,…
Bowman examines a scene from The Sopranos where John “Johnny Sack” Sacramoni seeks permission, from Tony Soprano among others to “clip” Ralph Cifaretto for jokingly insulting his wife’s weight, which has done damage to her “body image, self esteem.” None of his superiors will bite, and Bowman notes that the…
There’s a scene in Malory where Launcelot has been caught in Guenevere’s bedroom by his enemies, Aggravayne and Mordred, and in the ensuing altercation Launcelot kills 14 knights, all but Mordred, who is wounded. Summoned to appear before Arthur, Launcelot still protests his innocence: “Those who told you such tales…
Mandeville made explicit the connection between violence and ancient virtue that Milbank and others have commented on: “The Word Moral, without Doubt, comes from Mos, and signifies every Thing that relates to Manners: The Word Ethick is synonimous with Moral, and is derived from [Greek: ithik], which is exactly the…
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