Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for…
Naphtali Meshel observes in his new The "Grammar" of Sacrifice that scholars have been talking for decades about the "grammatical" character of ritual and sacrifice in general, but have never actually analyzed a specific ritual or sacrificial system grammatically. Some even talk about a "universal grammar" of sacrifice "even though…
Some Christians are rather breezy about the problem of evil. We shouldn't be. Do I need to remind you of the grisly beheadings that have taken place over the past few weeks? Do I need to remind you of the blood of innocents that’s been spilled in our own country?…
Have you ever been to a wedding where the heavens opened and a voice declared the couple “husband and wife”? Few of us have. Beautiful as they are, most marriages are quite mundane. Yet when Jesus talks about marriage, He describes it as something that God does: “What God has…
Jesus is the last and greatest of the Prophets. He is the Prophet that Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 18). That means He gives the final word, brings the blueprints for the final temple, speaks the final world into existence, and has complete and permanent access to the divine court, where He…
Paul stands against those who are “troubling” or “disturbing” the Galatians churches ( tarasso ; 1:7; also in 5:10). The reference seems to be two great troublers from the Old Testament. First, Achan is described as a “troubler” for the problems he causes in the aftermath of the battle at…
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John Gray begins his Enlightenment’s Wake with a breathtaking dismissal of neo-liberal political philosophy (the chapter is “Against the new liberalism”). I found it thrilling, and not just because I have a weakness for titles that begin with “Against.” A few highlights: “It is arguable that the traditional of liberal…
In the introduction to his 2005 book, Cities of God , Augustine Thompson complains that medievalists have paid too little attention to the religious lives of orthodox laymen: “Heretics, popes, theologians, Franciscans, and saints. Where is everyone else?” His book studies the communes of medieval Italian cities partly to redress…
Reacting to my earlier post on the week of John 1-2, John Barach offers a (needed) lesson in counting: It seems to me that the wedding at Cana has to be taken as the eighth day for two reasons. First, the parallels with the seven days of creation make it…
A friend and former student, Aaron Cummings. offers more thoughts on the lot-scapegoat connection: 1) Saul cast lots for Jonathan when we he sinned. Saul sinfully saw Jonathan as a new Achan, a man whose sin affected the congregation. Saul like Joshua uses lots to root out the sin. 2)…
Cities dominated by commerce are offensive to many today, but historically a city of commerce is a city of peace, a city that has escaped the domination of military elites and interest. Weber wrote: “While in Antiquity the hoplite army and its training and military interests moved to the center…
Power and gift seem to be opposed to each other, but Milbank argues that true rule is always donative, always a gift of ruling. This is partly a matter of power-sharing, and obvious once the point is made: A ruler who does not share rule is, by definition, a tyrant;…
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