Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I live in an area where Mardi Gras is in full swing, and I can remember from my upbringing that Fat Tuesday was a last ditch effort at debauchery before the pseudo-spiritual practice of “giving something up for Lent” really began. In my youth I would give up some kind…
Part 1: Observations from the Texts (Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:18-22, Luke 5:33-39) The precipitating context for the new wine/old wineskins discussion is people asking Jesus why His disciples did not fast. His immediate answer is that you can’t get the friends of the groom to fast at the bachelor party…
Simply, “progress” means to move forward. In that sense, a slug can progress from one end of the sidewalk to the other. But for us in twenty-first century America, progress means something else. For us, it is almost a synonym for goodness. The slug can only “progress” if the other…
I have the privilege of being able to counsel a lot of women who are seeking abortions. I can tell you that the majority of them are seeking to end their pregnancies not because they feel like it would be a fun thing to do, but because they are scared…
Last night, along with a few online friends, I watched this debate on the meaning of life between William Lane Craig, Rebecca Goldstein, and Jordan Peterson, hosted by Wycliffe College. While watching it, and reflecting upon Peterson’s work more generally (about which I’ve written in the past ), I was…
I’m glad to have been invited to contribute regularly to the Theopolis Institute website. Thank you, readers, for welcoming and joining what I hope will be a venture of integration. Integration itself is what I want to explore. And for me personally, this is the shape of my current integrative…
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What should Adam have done when the serpent started talking to Eve? What would you do? You’d scream, probably. But then you’d pray, hard. Because you’d know that only God can deliver you from a dragon. We sometimes think that Adam should have stepped up and handled the serpent bare-handed.…
Horton cites Irenaeus as an early theologian who anticipated the federal theologians by distinguishing between “the ‘covenant of law’ and the ‘covenant of grace.’” In a footnote, he claims that “Irenaeus even distinguishes between ‘an economy of law/works’ and a ‘Gospel covenant,’” citing Against Hereies 4.25. I don’t find the…
In his recent book on the covenant, Michael Horton says that under the covenant of works Adam was “a righteous and holy human servant entirely capable of fulfilling the stipulations of God’s law.” If this is taken in the sense that Adam had no sinful inclinations, and was posse non…
In a thoughtful review of Fergus Kerr’s recent book on Twentieth-century Catholic theology ( First Things , May), Rusty Reno discusses the distinction between exploratory and standard theology. The “Heroic Generation” prior to Vatican II (Congar, de Lubac, Rahner, Lonergan, and others) did theology in a creative, exploratory mode, severely…
Faith is often characterized as a “receptive” and “responsive” disposition, or as “passive.” Even if we accept standard definitions of faith, that characterization seems to overlook the variety of ways in which grace and faith can be related. There appear to be at least three. For clarity, in the following…
If you click on “Downloads” above you’ll be able to find a longish, but rather unpolished and work-in-progressive paper on the typological structure of Matthew. Thanks to Ralph and Emeth Smith for pdf-ing it for me and uploading it to this site.
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