Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Timon Cline wrote recently that “theonomists” didn’t run Puritan New England. 1 He is correct, in his major thesis, that the claim that “Puritanism and the natural law tradition are antithetical” is “wildly ahistorical.” Mr. Cline demonstrates that Puritans repeatedly extolled natural law. Besides the Puritan sources Mr. Cline mustered,…
The Church is the land of the walking trees. In Mark’s Gospel, the identity of Jesus is slowly and progressively revealed. Though St. Mark announces at the beginning of his narrative that Jesus Christ is “the Son of God” (1:1), this is a reality that must be spoon-fed to His…
All Scripture is of ultimate significance as the word of God, but it may be helpful to think about what makes a book (in this case, a letter) possibly unique within the canon. In this case, the “general” nature of Ephesians should stand out, but it often is not recognized…
Where do we draw the lines between what is right and wrong? This question is fundamental to civilization, fundamental to a free society. To put this question in the bluntest and most offense terms: if there is a time to kill — which Solomon says there is — whom shall…
This article was originally posted in May of 1994. We speak of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The early Church tended to speak of Him as Father, Word, and Spirit. In this short essay, I want to suggest some other ways to think of the Trinity, ways that…
Jonah’s Home The story of JONAH belongs in the book of KINGS. JONAH balances the story of the unnamed Judean prophet (1K13) in KINGS’ literary structure. Each story describes a journeying prophet that crosses land or sea to confront a wayward king. The two stories are located during the reigns…
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Barbara Newman has argued in Medieval Crossover that we mistake medieval literature and thought if we look at it from a post-Renaissance angle of vision. Sacred and secular exist in every world, and the shift from medieval to modern doesn’t change that. The issue, though, is which is the default…
Yellowhammer News reports that the Alabama state legislature is considering getting the state out of the marriage business: “State Senator Greg Albritton (R-Range) saw his bill to remove the state government from the marriage business clear its first hurdle Wednesday, after it passed out of the Judiciary committee unanimously. “SB377…
Troilus is mentioned in the Iliad , long enough to die. Priam laments that his best sons have died at Greek hands, leaving him with only the dregs of his family. In Pope's translation: Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire! Why did you not all in Hector’s cause expire? Wretch…
J acques Lacan devoted considerable attention to the psychoanalytical import of the courtly love tradition, and this has been developed at some length by Slavoj Zizek, especially in Metastases of Enjoyment . For Zizek, the elevation of the Lady that takes place in courtly love isn’t a “spiritualization” but rather…
B efore Lacan and Zizek devoted attention to courtly love, there was Denis de Rougemont’s Love in the Western World , which was popular reading among French intellectuals among whom postmodernism arose. It's an exaggeration to say that postmodernism ontologizes courtly love, but it's the kind of exaggeration that gets…
Insofar as Derrida's thought is a thought of the ineffable, retreated sublime, the transcendent signified that escapes language and leaves only traces, his thought is structured like the courtship of a courtly lover. In an essay in the Cardozo Law Review , Barbara Vinken shows that Derrida was quite self-conscious…
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