Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The first quotation at the heading of PART 1 is from J. D. Unwin's Sex and Culture, a 676 page volume published in 1934. The second quotation is from a lecture given by Freud at the University of Vienna, and it parallels the theme of his book, Civilization and Its…
Sometimes a man has been heard to declare that he wishes both to enjoy the advantage of high culture and to abolish compulsory continence. The inherent desire of the human organism, however, seems to be such that these desires are incompatible, or even contradictory. Any human society is free to…
Genesis 2:5 says that no shrub yet existed in the earth and no field plant had sprouted for two reasons. The first is that "Yahweh God had not caused rain upon the earth," and the second is that "there was no man to serve the soil." Then v. 6 explains…
This hymn was written by Brian Daigle and is based on the Epiphany lectionary readings. It follows the tune of "We Three Kings." Brian is Headmaster and teacher at Sequitur Classical Academy and Director of Chesterton College . Brian lives in Baton Rouge with his wife, Lauren, and their three…
As a rite of command performance worship, danced before the throne of God for His pleasure, the Church Year is a form of covenant recital or covenant rehearsal. The recital of the covenant in Scripture takes two forms. The first is the recounting of the great acts of redemption that…
The recent developments of the #metoo and #churchtoo movements has shed new light on sexual assault in the United States. Its impact has been felt at the highest court in the country. Amid this, a new statement distinguishing the gospel from social justice was published by some within conservative evangelicalism.…
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The story is told of the desert father Abba Apollo, who was appalled when he encountered a devil without knees. John Ratzinger wrote of this story “The inability to kneel is seen as the very essence of the diabolical.”
Malcolm Ruel, again in the Blackwell Reader in the anthropology of religion, traces the changing meanings of “faith.” For the Hebrew Bible, ‘mn “denotes . . . a quality of relationship: it was used of the reliability or trustworthiness of a servant, a witness, messenger, or a prophet, but is…
Asad identifies the particular moment when “Christianity” (in the pejorative sense I’ve used it) was invented: In the wake of the post-Reformation wars, Lord “Herbert produced a substantive definition of what later came to be formulated as Natural Religion - in terms of beliefs (about a supreme power), practices (its…
The aforementioned reader in anthropology of religion includes Talal Asad’s essay on the construction of “religion” as an anthropological concept. He argues that it is usually assumed, for instance, that medieval “religion” was the same in essence as modern religion, but that “its social extension and function were different in…
The second edition of the Blackwell Reading in the Anthropology of Religion (edited, Michael Lambek) looks to be a great resource, for those who like such things. There are classic essays from Tylor, Durkheim, Weber, and Geertz, Wittgenstein on Frazer, Susanne Langer on symbols and Mary Douglas on clean and…
In his Theology of the New Testament (Zondervan, 2005), Frank Thielman responds to the claim that justification is secondary to participation with Christ in Paul’s theology. Thielman does not agree, but he does say that it is true that “Paul’s references to the death of Christ more often support his…
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