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…
Showing page 159 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
In 1859, Baron George-Eugene Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine, began overhauling Paris. The ultimate result was a masterpiece of urban rationality - straight streets, buildings of the same height, squares, a mappable city. On the way to clarity, though, the city was “rendered illegible,” according to art historian T. J.…
Knight says that modernity has not left the upper/lower, intelligible/sensible dualism of Platonism behind, but only tipped it on its side. The modern “subject” is a variation on the world of ideas, while the inert “object” corresponds to the lesser reality of the sensible world.
A strict distinction between law and gospel is offered as a prophylactic against works-righteousness. If it is admitted that law is gospel in any sense, all is lost. But this view assumes the very same view of law that it contests. A proponent of works righteousness sees the law as…
In his essay “What is Enlightenment?” Kant described humanity’s coming-of-age. Enlightenment makes man’s deliverance from the tutelage of external authorities and the achievement of mature autonomy. Earlier, Descartes had constructed an entire philosophy on the foundation of “clear and distinct ideas.” The Enlightenment billed itself as the end of blindness…
Since at least Kant, Western theology has been hesitant to talk about salvation in terms of payment, debt, restitution. This helps create and reinforce the separation of public and private, of inner and outer: “We have divided the theological confession of sin. We have invented two parallel worlds, one in…
Knight defines “secularity” as “the term for the determination of an elite to be autonomous and to make the polis the servant and expression of their autonomy. Some are then free of external intellectual authority, but they themselves comprise an undeclared intellectual authority over others. The state would then not…
Showing page 1498 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
