Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I grew up on the north side of Chicago. My parents were evangelicals and I was raised in the faith. I graduated from a large public high school in which practicing Christians were very few and very far between (though nominal Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox were in abundance), which…
During the recent round table discussion on the future of Protestantism , Peter Leithart advocated a much greater degree of unity in the Church than we presently enjoy. Another participant in the discussion wondered aloud how Leithart's vision would be different from the ministerial associations that presently exist in many…
"But he, wanting to justify himself, said, 'And who is my neighbor?' And Jesus said to him, 'First, your neighbors are the people in your church, then the ones with whom you enjoy greatest doctrinal or ecclesiastical commonality, then those with whom you enjoy less commonality.'" -Said Jesus... never Since…
A number of years ago, I came across something in the Puritan Thomas Goodwin in regard to John 17:22. Goodwin points out that Jesus prays that they (the disciples) might be given the glory of the Father as a means to an end. The end is unity, and the means…
In her prize-winning book, Gilead , Marilynne Robinson uses the pastoral settings of Iowa to challenge ministers to live up to their high callings. One of the most powerful themes in the novel is the pastor’s power to “bless.” The tension in the novel builds as we watch Rev. Ames…
One of the few glaring errors of the Protestant Reformers was the failure to welcome children back to the Lord's Table. Something that seems to go along with this was the exclusion of other kinds of Christians, primarily Roman Catholics, from Holy Communion in Protestant churches. Exclusion of Roman Catholics…
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Modernity, Sergei Bulgakov once said, is a sphinx. It poses a riddle, and those who cannot or will not answer the riddle are devoured. The editors of Political Theology in Orthodox Christianity cite this at the beginning of their study to highlight the ambivalence of modernity. It has both constructive…
"One of the factors that has rendered [Bach's] Matthew Passion so successful over the course of its reception," writes John Butt ( Bach's Dialogue with Modernity , 36), "lies in its evocation of subjectivities that somehow resonate with those of the broader modern condition." Bach's Passions target "the individual believer,…
Alastair Roberts's contribution to Our Secular Age , a collection of essays on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age , focuses on the effect of secularism on liturgical piety. Taylor identifies "authenticity" as one of the features of our secular age, and Roberts observes that this can take the form of…
Graham Allison's Destined for War is a study of contemporary politics, Sino-American relations in particular. Along the way, he asks what we would think if China started acting like the U.S. did as we rose to global prominence. The career of Teddy Roosevelt makes the point: “ In the decade…
William Golding, writes Allan Massie in a review of John Carey's biography in the TLS , was "a late starter, one oppressed in youth by doubts and feelings of social, and perhaps intellectual, inferiority. Until his middle forties he was a poor, reluctant and unsatisfied provincial schoolmaster." He more than…
John Lanchester reviews James Scott's latest ( Against the Grain ) in the New Yorker . Scott contends that human civilization is the product of our mastery of fire. Fire enabled humans to cook food, and that gave us, Scott argues, and evolutionary advantage. Chimps put a lot of (unconscious)…
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