Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Place names become fraught with meaning by association with people and events. The name “Wittenberg” calls to mind Luther and the Reformation for Protestants and Catholics alike. Geneva has a wider range of associations, but the Reformation Wall, with its four main statues of William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza,…
“…a mystery without a solution, a horror story without savagery, a nightmare in which all the watches stop at noonday…” The Bestial Gardens of Men Then they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” (Luke 23:30) The following lines by Edgar Allan Poe,…
2 Samuel 11-12, which record David’s sin with Bathsheba and its aftermath, is structured chiastically: This arrangement highlights several things about the episode. It reinforces what is obvious from even a casual reading, that the transition in the story occurs with Nathan’s confrontation of David’s sin and David’s confession. Up…
Medieval bestiaries are packed with quaintly inaccurate information about animals, birds, and other created things. Foxes and snakes are devilish critters; stags, pelicans and elephants are Christlike in their various ways. Of course, the medievals picked this up from the Bible, where bestiary observations are fairly common. “Go to the…
What do Reformational Catholicism and craft beer have in common? The question seems to beg for a punchline. Better yet, it would be pretty good clickbait for an article on Katharina von Bora’s “spirited” contribution that helped spark the Protestant Reformation. Well, this is no joke and I am certainly…
Suffering Defined Suffering happens. We witness it all around us and experience it in our lives. It often comes from forces beyond our control. Suffering is inscrutable; it strikes unexpectedly, on a bright summer day or a cold winter night. We lament and are bewildered by suffering. But we are…
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Chris Rojek describes celebrity as “the attribution of glamorous or notorious status to an individual within the public sphere.” He recognizes there are other forms of celebrity: the “ascribed” celebrity of inherited status (Prince William, eg), and the “achieved” celebrity of an accomplished musician or writer or actor or sports…
Dogmatics, according to Barth (CD, I, 1), is the correction, clarification, and criticism of church proclamation by measuring proclamation against the Word of God in the Bible. Dogmatics is a second-order form of thought and reflection. It is not the same as the proclamation of the church; it is a…
I’ve read this paragraph from the introduction to Milbank’s Theology and Social Theory dozens of times, but it’s still thrilling. “The pathos of modern theology is its false humility. For theology, this must be a fatal disease, because once theology surrenders its claim to be a meta-discourse, it cannot any…
I’ve read this paragraph from the introduction to Milbank’s Theology and Social Theory dozens of times, but it’s still thrilling. “The pathos of modern theology is its false humility. For theology, this must be a fatal disease, because once theology surrenders its claim to be a meta-discourse, it cannot any…
If “we have never been modern,” why do we all say we have? Why do we say we’re living in an iron cage, that the world has been secularized and disenchanted, that religion has passed its sell-by date? Perhaps we just like to beat ourselves up. Or, perhaps the notion…
If “we have never been modern,” why do we all say we have? Why do we say we’re living in an iron cage, that the world has been secularized and disenchanted, that religion has passed its sell-by date? Perhaps we just like to beat ourselves up. Or, perhaps the notion…
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