Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me. In 2005, God blessed our family with our third child, our second daughter, whom we named Bethany. As soon as Bethany was born, we knew there was something different about her. Unlike her two older siblings, who were born…
Christian, what is it that we believe? While Creeds like the Nicene and Apostle’s have been fundamental pieces of Christian liturgy and life, the American Church is highly unattached to these classic statements. From this creedal phobia has arisen the popular “No Creed, but Christ” slogan. Such slogan, of course,…
Revisiting William Cavanaugh’s devastating 2009 The Myth of Religious Violence . The myth of Cavanaugh’s title is a well-known one. According to the myth, religion is a distinct sphere of human life and practice from the rest of human social life, a universal impulse in human beings, and is dogmatic,…
19 Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 20 And when he had so…
An octave is a repetition, a repetition with a difference. It’s not the first note played again , but the first note played at a higher pitch. Octaves have always marked new beginnings. Hebrew boys were circumcised on the eighth day. Firstborn sheep were dedicated to Yahweh on the eighth…
We say Jesus’ resurrection is good news. It wasn’t good news for the disciples on the first Easter. More like perplexing, bewildering news. For others, it wasn’t perplexing, and it certainly wasn’t good. It was plain old bad news. Early in Luke’s gospel, Herod is terrified that Jesus might be…
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In his commentary on the Johannine epistles, I. Howard Marshall notes A. Wurm’s thesis that John’s opponents were Jews. John’s opponents claim to know the Father, but deny Jesus is the Christ, a position that is certainly compatible with Judaism. Marshall dismisses Wurm’s thesis because John treats his opponents as…
Brown suggests that the structure of John’s gospel sets the pattern for the first epistle. His outline of the gospel is: A. Prologue, 1:1-18. B. Book of Signs, 1:19-12:50. C. Book of Glory, 13:1-20:29. D. Epilogue, ch. 21. And the first epistle: A. Prologue, 1:1-4. B. Part 1, 1:5-3:10 (God…
Raymond Brown notes that a number of scholars have identified the adversaries of 1 John as “Jews who denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.” He finds this implausible since it’s hard to see how Jews could be “looked on as people who placed little emphasis on…
Raymond Brown notes that a number of scholars have identified the adversaries of 1 John as “Jews who denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.” He finds this implausible since it’s hard to see how Jews could be “looked on as people who placed little emphasis on…
Peter van Inwagen distinguishes nicely between analytical philosophy as a “particular” form of philosophy and as a “universal” philosophical mode, and gives a tidily potted history: “As a particular, it is a confluence of streams of thought whose springs were in Britain, Austria, Poland and the United States. It has…
According to Paul Quinn (in the TLS), Alexander Theroux’s 700-page Darconville’s Cat was a product of jilted love. “Do your worst,” she had said when Theroux threatened to expose her in fiction, and he did: Theroux “encrypted his former lover’s name in acrostics and anagrams, and even cited her as…
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