Theopolis Logo

Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

See all
tonik-haz3tnzqp6w-unsplash
Anxiety

Viral Anxiety Requires Infectious Wisdom

At the time I write this, many in the United States are under some kind of “lock-down” order. But, thanks to the internet, people are still able to communicate with each other. And people have differing opinions on which medical or scientific projection about our current pandemic is most likely…

by Mark HorneApril 21, 2020
screen-shot-2020-04-14-at-8-53-04-am
Gospels

Shall We Receive Good From God, But Not Calamity?

So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal…

by Jeff MeyersApril 14, 2020
morgan-vander-hart-s-m2pamjcvg-unsplash
Family

A Family Liturgy

Throughout the world, pastors and leaders are making sometimes excruciating decisions about whether or not to hold public worship services during the coronavirus pandemic and, if so, how. We at Theopolis encourage you to find creative, safe, reasonable, and submissive ways to meet in person with other believers. For many,…

by Peter LeithartApril 8, 2020
the-destruction-of-jerusalem-by-nebuzar
Covenant

Zion as an Ascension

An excerpt from The End of Israel: Jesus, Paul & AD70 by Michael Bull The Hebrew word olah, translated “whole burnt offering” literally means “go up.” The explanatory “translation” is helpful in its description of the offering but unfortunately for English readers it veils the symbolic meaning. As far as…

by Mike BullApril 7, 2020
e99a2549
Coronavirus

Worship in Exile

The # Coronavirus is trending more frequently than your favorite five celebrities put together. Our culture has exchanged TMZ stories for the primacy of the geeks who once made their living in the privacy of their laboratory. These are now our modern-day celebrities. It’s safe to say the experts surrounding…

by Uri BritoMarch 31, 2020
screen-shot-2020-03-26-at-11-54-58-am
Baptism

A Baptism Letter

In the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, Lord, and Friend. Dear sister in Christ, Your baptism is firm and certain not because of anything you have done or the pastor who administered your baptism in Christ’s stead and command. Your baptism is firm and certain because of God and…

by Todd HainsMarch 26, 2020

Showing page 68 of 309

See all

Showing page 9 of 43

See all
Theology

Privatio boni

Milbank makes a couple of interesting points regarding the import of an Augustinian view of evil. 1) Augustine’s view assumes the goodness of matter, in fact the goodness of all being. This, Milbank claims, seems to excuse evil - it’s some lack, a weakness or finitude, that makes for evil.…

July 11, 2007
Theology

Privatio boni and banal evil

In the view of many, the Holocaust belied the Augustinian description of evil as the privation of good. Something much more insidiously positive was at work in the death camps. Hannah Arendt, however, seems to confirm the Augustinian perspective in her treatment of the banality of evil. According to Milbank,…

July 10, 2007
Philosophy

Argue, or obey?

Kant bristles at the demand that he claims to hear “on all sides”: ” Don’t argue !” Officers tell us to obey, tax-officials to pay, clergy to pray in a certain way. But Kant wants to argue. Or does he? Maybe not: “in some affairs which affect the interests of…

July 10, 2007
Philosophy

The duty of enlightenment

Kant’s appeal in “What Is Enlightenment?” is not primarily intellectual but ethical. Enlightenment, Kant says, “is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.” Immaturity he defines as “the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another,” and this immaturity is “self-incurred” when the cause is “lack of resolution…

July 10, 2007
American Religion

Americanism

David Gelernter, Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion . New York: Doubleday, 2007. 229 pp. Hardback, $24.95. America, G. K. Chesterton said, is a nation with the soul of a church. David Gelernter, the polymathic computer scientist from Yale, suggests that this doesn’t quite go far enough. For many, both…

July 10, 2007

God’s Whimsy

Wiker and Witt suggest that God created pandas as “comic relief” in a blessed fit of “divine whimsy.” The suggestion is troubling even for Christians who defend creation, because, being engineers, they have swallowed the reductive notion that creation must be functional. Wiker and Witt offer this rejoinder: “To spurn…

July 9, 2007

Showing page 1658 of 2212

Browse by Category

In Medias Res

Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.

Donate

Theopolis is nearly 100% donor-supported. Consider joining us on our mission.