Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Understanding Shakespeare’s Biblical references is vital for the interpretation of many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. For Othello , it is especially important, not only because the interpretation of the play is contested among various approaches — feminist, homosexual, post-colonial, Marxist, Freudian, new historical, and others — but also…
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism . He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions…
I begin with two observations. First, on any millennial view, the Christian account of history is progressive, moving from the garden to the city. It is eschatological not only in that there is an end, but that the end is a glorified beginning, not merely a return to origins. To…
The church is a new form of polity that erupts into the world as much as the Son of God comes into the world. It’s a real-world political alternative to the polities of the ancient world. It resolves many of the political dilemmas of the ancient world, though not simply…
In my last post , I explained how Baptists really have a “one-ordinance-one sacrament” ecclesiology. I said this: “what Baptists really believe, in modern parlance, is that there is one ordinance (baptism which is a sign or symbol only) and one sacrament (the Lord’s Supper in which feeding upon Jesus…
One of the most extensive and penetrating responses to the Yoder-Hauerwas attack on Constantiniansm is found in Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations , in a chapter entitled “The Obedience of Rulers.” O’Donovan defines the word “Christendom” as “a historical idea,” specifically “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order,…
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Milbank sums up Victor Turner by saying that “the sublime is no longer outside the social, at the margin of individuality [as in Weber’s charisma], and nor is it the social whole [as in Durkheim]: instead it is situated within society in the constant negotiation of dangerous passages. Paradoxically, it…
City of God 10.6 is a rich and important, though obscure, explanation of what might be called the sociology of sacrifice. At the beginning of the chapter, Augustine defines sacrifice as any act we perform in order to be united to God in holy society. Acts of mercy are sacrifices,…
Dodaro again: “Only when it is understood by believers that God mediates goodness to human beings directly, without intermediary spiritual beings such as angels - and certainly not through priests - is it possible to put an end to spiritual rivalries.”
The Donatists are usually seen as the sectarians of the early church but Robert Dodaro points out that for Augustine their sectarianism derived from their clericalism: “Augustine explains that cultic acts which remit sins, such as baptism, are in reality performed by Christ, who acts through Christian priests. Augustine’s frequent…
INTRODUCTION Like Moses (Numbers 27:17), Jesus sees that Israel is like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36), a field white to harvest. Moses gave authority to Joshua to lead Israel in and out in conquest; Jesus gives authority to the Twelve to carry out another conquest (10:1). THE TEXT “And…
Matthew 9:36: And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were harassed and thrown down like sheep having no shepherd. I mentioned in the sermon that the phrase “sheep without a shepherd” appears in the prophecy of Micaiah who warns Ahab that he will die if he…
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