Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Continuing through The Worship of the English Puritans by Horton Davies: The author gives some of his own appraisals rather than immediately quoting Durel, even though that is how he began his chapter. In Davies’ opinion, while the Puritans would invoke their own interpretation of Scripture in order to condemn,…
What follows are from a couple of posts on my blog. I hoped to do a series. If I do follow up, I will probably want to do it here on the BH blog rather than my own. Feedback welcome: It is no secret that some have been scathingly critical…
Jeremy Sexton wrote this in an earlier line of discussion: “Along those lines, I think what we most often miss in our theology of baptism (though Calvin didn’t miss this) is that Christian baptism — if it “is” anything that came before — is Jesus’ water baptism. In our baptism,…
Jeff pointed out that baptism is not Christian circumcision . Looking at the comments, I think it might be helpful to point out that Israel was not the Church . In the new creation, the idea of an “unbaptized Christian” is either very temporary or an anomaly. Those who came…
Once a upon a time, one Sunday morning, a pastor mounted his pulpit for the sermon and said the following: A troubled young man walked into a downtown high-rise building. As he approached the directory on the wall, he took out a small booklet and looked back and forth from…
If you are, say, leading a Bible study in Genesis, you might notice that right after the covenant is renewed and circumcision is established (ch 17) that we see Abraham eating and drinking with God (ch 18). After that meal, God makes a point of saying the he should share…
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In a discussion of King Lear , David Bevington suggests that Edgar saves his father at the cliffs of Dover by constructing a cosmology in which the gods are merciful and perform miracles: “Edgar stages his fiction in this particular way because he knows his father well enough to realize…
Many of Shakespeare’s plays explore the moral and political consequences of ingratitude, but Shakespeare is also cognizant of the tyrannical uses to which the demand for gratitude may be put. Lear is certainly about ingratitude, the “marble-hearted fiend” that infects and distorts the monsters of ingratitude Goneril and Regan, as…
Friedrich Oetinger was a leading German pietist intellectual and theologian, deeply interested in the science of his day. And critical of science and rationalist philosophy as well. Against thinkers who placed a primacy on reason, Oetinger argued that sheer logical clarity is insufficient “for living knowledge.” Living knowledge takes form…
I tell a joke, and you get it. I include a veiled allusion to, say, Faust in a casual conversation; you catch it; and we exchange a mental wink. Humor provides a pathway into the hermeneutics of texts and communication. It also seems to provide a pathway into the sociology…
Gadamer notes the ambiguity of “keeping something in mind.” We sometimes hold something in our mental “gaze” in order to knock into it head on. We watch it carefully until we can grab it. But keeping in mind can also be a form of forgetfulness. We might also keep something…
Gadamer notes that the concept of Bildung (culture) has its origins in medieval and baroque mysticism, and continues to carry a mystical connotation when it begins to be used of the cultivated humanness. Von Humboldt, for instance, says “when in our language we say Bildung, we mean something both higher…
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