Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
1. Come, Ye Thankful People, Come. This hymn by Henry Alford is found in many hymnals, including Cantus Christi . Yet, the last stanza radically contradicts the theological perspective of the historic faith and of the editors of this hymnal. It is a witness to how we tend to bounce…
This series of post were originally published at the Biblical Horizons blog. The entire paper can be downloaded HERE . 7. The Literary Shape of the Covenant As we have seen, there is a succession of covenants in the Bible, each more glorious than the previous, each absorbing and transfiguring…
This series of post were originally published at the Biblical Horizons blog. The entire paper can be downloaded HERE . 6. Covenant Phases in the Bible Thus far we have spoken of only three phases in the history of the one covenant. We must now divide the third phase into…
This series of post were originally published at the Biblical Horizons blog. The entire paper can be downloaded HERE . 5. Priest, King, and Prophet We can begin with the phrase “prophet, priest, and king.” This is the order normally heard from preachers and theologians. But it is not really…
This is a fine hymn by John Mason Neale, based on an ancient Greek church hymn. The opening question is particularly powerful: “Christian, dost thou see them on the holy ground, how the powers of darkness compass thee around?” Yes, the devil strikes in the very church and her worship…
This syrupy piece of marijuana-haze hymnody is found in the hymnals of churches that have substituted sentiment for orthodoxy and worship. Hence you don’t find it in older Presbyterian hymnals, but in the Trinity Hymnal. Nor do you find it in Episcopal and Lutheran hymnals until very recently in some…
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P eter Harrison points out in his The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (10–11) that the Reformation coincided with the rediscovery of ancient skepticism. While the Reformers were undermining traditional Catholic sources of authority from one side, Montaigne and others were corroding certainty from the other. Descartes…
Karl Shuve's contribution to Apocalypses in Context traces the Christian use of Jewish apocalyptic, especially of the Book of the Watchers from 1 Enoch, which even makes it into the universal canon of the New Testament (Jude). The Watcher story appears in Justin, who “blames ‘every evil' on the Watcher…
Thomas Fabisiak wonders, What does the New Jerusalem have to do with modernity? ( Apocalypses in Context ). Ask most modern philosophers, and the answer will be, Not much. Fabisiak speaks of the “'rhetorical construction' of modernity” that takes the form of a dismissal or expulsion of apocalyptic and all…
In a 2011 New Yorker profile of Norwegian chess champion Magnus Carlsen, D.T. Max digresses to explain the logic behind the Soviet interest in chess: “Lenin, an enthusiastic player, made the game a priority for the new nation. In 1920, Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky, a commissar of Soviet chess, wrote that chess,…
In the middle stanzas of “Erotikos Logos,” watching someone else reading, Scott Cairns ( Slow Pilgrim , 278) writes, “So much, of course, depends upon your own willingness to find something worthy here, even as you bring - as you must - something worthy to the effort. So much of…
Andrew Pettegree ( Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion ) observes a shift in rhetorical tone in Protestant-Catholic debates between the early and mid sixteenth century: “While much of the polemical writing of Luther’s day was rumbustious in tone, making liberal use of ridicule and ad hominem attacks, it still…
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