Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Utopia is often accompanied by such adjectives as impossible, unrealistic, and impractical. In spite of that, it is not so hard to find some renowned people who actually maintain that is a very helpful and practical concept. Zygmunt Bauman ( Socialism: The Active Utopia ) argues that “utopian thinking belongs…
C. S. Lewis was no fan of the cinema. He once described himself as “rather allergic to films” and after attending one he added in a letter to a friend, “Do not worry it shall not become a habit.” But though he was quick to dismiss films, his fruitful discussion…
Noted Catholic patristic scholar, Robert Louis Wilken, delivered the second annual Nevin Lectures at Beeson Divinity School's Hodges Chapel last Friday and Saturday, February 20-21, 2015. Wilken, the Emeritus William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia, traced the influence of the writings…
I confess that I’m surprised by the number of Christians who are surprised by the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey . Many are simply bewildered by the buzz the movie has generated. They shouldn’t be. This is the world we live in. More precisely, this is the country we…
The newer perspective on justification by faith advocated in various studies in Pauline Theology by N.T. Wright and others, is now utterly relevant to our historical situation. Such work cannot be merely avant garde theologizing. In Luther’s day, everyone was “in” as regards the Church and the faith. We were…
Over the centuries, Christians have fasted for many reasons. Sometimes, the reasons have been good. The apostles and their churches fasted and prayed before selecting elders or ordaining missionaries. Christians have fasted in mourning for their sins. They have fasted and prayed to combat demons and to plead with God…
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John Smart’s Tarantula’s Web , on the circle of intellectuals around John Hayward and TS Eliot is, according to Lachlan Mackinnon , an unrivaled “demonstration” of “just how ‘unpleasant’ it might have been ‘to meet Mr Eliot.” Hayward and Eliot were “extremely” intimate Mackinnon writes, but they fell out over…
Slash me with a glance and purge me with your gaze. Consume me in your flaming eyes, and set my heart ablaze.
A friend and former student, Pastor C.J. Bowen, writes in response to my recent discussion of Jesus as “new Phinehas.” The remainder of this post is from C.J. Having recently preached through the early chapters of Acts, I was bothered by the interpretation that the early church was unfaithful to…
How can Yahweh’s name be profaned? Can holiness leak out? In a recent Princeton dissertation ( This Is the Thing that the Lord Commanded You To Do ) Bryan Bibb notes that some qualities depend on the response of a community; they are socially constructed qualities: “personal qualities (like authority…
As many commentators have pointed out, Leviticus 25-26 form a single literary unit. John Bergsma ( The Jubilee from Leviticus to Quram , 82-3) calls attention to the inclusio on “Mount Sinai” (25:1; 26:46), and lists eight literary links between the two chapters, including a common concern for Sabbath, the…
The Void is one of the essential dimensions of humanness, argues Esther Lightcap Meek ( A Little Manual for Knowing , 35). The Void is the recognition that we might not be, which can arise from curse, betrayal, or from “a brush with death or fear, depression or danger, an…
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