Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the first post of this series, I proposed that the sacraments of baptism and communion are the nexus point for the evangelical and ecumenical movements. In the following post , I proposed a new orientation for ecumenism – a conciliarity of the cross – with the necessary confession of…
“Contextualization” is now, and has been for a long time, the buzzword for the day. 1 Missionary effort in non-Western countries is all about “contextualization” — making our communication of the Gospel, if not the Gospel itself, fit into the culture to whom we from the West speak. 2 There…
In my previous post , I highlighted the sacraments as the point of convergence between evangelicalism and ecumenism arguing that baptism and communion are presented in the New Testament as signs of the gospel that simultaneously enact and remember union with Christ and the unity of Christ’s body. I concluded…
Click HERE for Part I of this series. What does baptism have to do with culture? As I said in the previous essay, the short answer is “everything!” To begin with, baptism is baptism into Jesus’ death (Romans 6:3). Paul explains this as the crucifixion of the “old man” (“old…
In the accounts of our Lord’s nativity and early childhood, so familiar to us from many years of Advent and Christmas services, we often fail to recognize in them the gentle intimations of a greater nativity that is yet to come. The attentive ear, however, can discover in these passages…
Isaiah warns that Yahweh is coming to remove Judah’s leaders in every area of social, economic and political life so completely that there will be no one left to lead besides children (3:4) and women (v. 12). As Isaiah goes on, however, it becomes clear that the women of Judah…
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In his recently re-released Bioethics: A Primer for Christians , Gilbert Meilaender discusses baptism to formulate a Christian understanding of the person. Baptism, he points out, is a communal act but also individualizing: “the first thing to note about baptism is that it is a deeply individualizing act. Our parents…
In his book, Erotic Faith , Robert M. Polhemus offers an intriguing analysis of Bronzino’s Allegory with Venus and Cupid . The allegory suggests that “worship of Venus . . . blinds one to the menace of time and death.” Seeking sexual fulfillment means “betraying self, God, and humankind as…
In his classic study of romanticism and literary theory, The Mirror and the Lamp , MH Abrams points out the crucial change in images of the mind - from the mind as a “mirror” of outside reality to the mind as a “lamp” or a “fountain” that determines what it…
Hannah Arendt claimed that “An object is cultural depending on the duration of its permanence: its durable character is opposed to its functional aspect, that aspect which would make it disappear from the phenomenal world through use and wear and tear . . . . Culture finds itself under threat…
At the climactic moment of reversal in the court scene in Merchant of Venice , Portia tells Shylock: “This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood.” “Jot” comes to English through the Greek iota , which is linked to the Hebrew YOD through Jesus’ usage in Matthew 5.…
spectral rime-frosted trees in early morning moonlight cast shadows on the pasture
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