Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Gambling The Bible nowhere condemns gambling, and so we need to be careful in our assessment of it. Let me begin by making a strong case against gambling. Then I will surprise most readers by pointing out that gambling may not always be sinful. The reader should bear in mind…
Tim Powers, The Stress of Her Regard (Ace Books, 1991). Reviewed by Jeffrey Meyers. Tim Power’s latest novel is now available in paperback. The story is set in early nineteenth century England and Italy, in the world of the poets John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron. Michael Crawford, a…
A close supporter of Biblical Horizons asks whether it is proper and wise to get involved in all the boycotts that Christians are being asked to observe today. She raises the point that Paul’s advice about eating meat sacrificed to idols seems relevant to the discussion. I think she is…
Solomon began to build the Temple of the Lord in the fourth year of his reign, which was 480 years after Israel came out of Egypt, the year A.M. 2993 (1 Kings 6:1). Seven years later, in the year A.M. 3000, the Temple building was finished (1 Kings 6:38). The…
Several months back, a candidate for ordination was being examined for entrance into the Presbytery of which I am a member. The candidate had a good deal of trouble with the exam on the sacraments, stumbling badly as he tried to define the "nature of the sacrament." Apparently in an…
Exploring the influence of televangelism on American religion in his book, The Struggle for America’s Soul , Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow presents a typical, though hypothetical, case study: Mabel Miller. Mabel lives alone, thousands of miles from her family. She grew up in a Baptist Church, but now, approaching 65,…
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The epigram to chapter 11 of Charles Freeman’s Closing of the Western Mind is from a letter of Constantine to the churches in Alexandria: “We have received from Divine Providence the supreme favor of being relieved of all error.” The footnote leads to Ramsay Macmullen’s Christianity and Paganism in the…
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton disappointed human rights activists by degrading the role of human rights issues in her discussions with Chinese. Differences on human rights will not, she said, interfere with the common interests of the US and China. Today, she commends the Chinese for bailing out the US by continuing…
Momigliano again, pointing out that the church had ways of dealing with the barbarian threat that were not available to pagans: “The educated pagan was by definition afraid of barbarians. There was no bridge between the aristocratic ideals of a pagan and the primitive violence of the German invader.” At…
Not not did the church draw the best men, men who otherwise would have been, Momigliano says, “generals, governors or provinces, advisers to the emperors,” but it drew popular enthusiasm and loyalty, and money: “Money which would have gone to the building of a theatre or of an aqueduct now…
Arnaldo Momigliano suggests that one of the key ways that Christianity contributed to the decline of Rome was by siphoning off the best and brightest to the church. The “central feature of the fourth century” was “the emergence of the Church as an organization competing with the State itself and…
Constantine’s legislation in the Theodosian Code includes several odd decrees that prohibit soothsayers and other magicians from “crossing the threshold” of a house under the pretext of friendship. Private soothsaying is prohibited. At the same time, Constantine says that soothsayers will be consulted if lightning strikes the palace, and also…
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