Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The “second Reformation” introduced Reformed liturgy and teaching into Lutheran Germany. This was seen by some as a continuation of the Reformation and a purgation of Catholic remnants. The effort to carry on “further reformation” led to disputes with Lutherans. As Bodo Nischan has put it, the hottest debate in…
In J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century , Tom Shippey observes that Bilbo is a member of the middle class, a bourgeois. Bilbo does not have any servants, but his hole is “the home of a member of the Victorian upper-middle class of Tolkien’s nineteenth-century youth, full of…
Idolatry has deprived Israel of her senses. This was one of the early messages to Isaiah (Isaiah 6). Yahweh sent him out to a people who had been deprived of their senses because of their commitment to idols. They become like the idols they serve. They still have eyes, but…
In the current climate of Trinitarian discussion concerning personhood, it's good to reach back to David Bentley Hart's treatment of the subject in his wonderful Beauty of the Infinite . Hart addresses the dangers of misreading Rahner’s rule, namely, the danger of dissolving the ontological Trinity into the economic. In…
Chris Kou is the oldest son of Chinese immigrants. Chris and his brothers run a branding and marketing business, Imagineering, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. In his spare time, he takes online courses from Reformed Theological Seminary, and aspires to be a pastor. Chris is also one of our…
The following was delivered as the Solemn Charge and Exhortation to Theopolis students beginning the Easter term course on Architecture and Liturgical Space . As we will be reminded repeatedly throughout the week, the Bible has a lot to say about building and buildings. Long stretches of Exodus, Kings, Chronicles,…
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In his 1972 Denominational Society , the late Andrew Greeley sketches the shape of the denominational society. It is a masterly portrait that captures the energies and contradictions of American religion. He notes, for instance, that “most American religious groups have accepted the existing social order and served as integrators…
In his contribution to Church, Identity, and Change , David Carlson offers an honest assessment of the entanglement of Lutheran Eucharistic theology with German Ethnicity. Friedrich Wyneken, “a key architect of confessional Lutheranism in America” (266), came to American intent on preserving Lutheran fellowship. As he understood it, “fellowship .…
The neatly structured song of the martyrs (Revelation 15:3-4) is a turning point in the book. The first four lines are set up in two pairs. The first line describes the Lord’s works as “great and marvelous,” like the sign that John sees in heaven (v. 1). This is exodus…
For a long time, opponents of the ecumenical movement have charged that it was an attempt to arrive at a doctrinally-light, lowest-common-denominator, man-made organizational unity. The slightest investigation would have demonstrated that this is untrue. The World Council of Church's New Delhi 1961 statement “On Unity” may be imperfect in…
Conflict has its uses. A form of social interaction, it seems nearly essential to maintaining the structures of society. Georg Simmel writes that “the positive and integrating role of antagonism is shown in structures which stand out by the sharpness and carefully preserved purity of their social divisions and gradations.…
Before Israel crosses the Jordan, the Lord reminds the three trans-Jordanian tribes of the deal struck with them. Yahweh has already begun to give them the land He promised to Abraham, and Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh will settle there. Before they settle down, though, they need…
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