Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Why there is more to Jephthah than meets than eye It was not that long ago that I realized the Jephthah-story and the Jesus-story were basically the same story. Sounds crazy, I know. But here is a one-paragraph synopsis of both: The people of God have gone their own way,…
G.K. Chesterton famously said that the Gospels don’t reveal Jesus’ mirth. It’s true we never catch Jesus laughing. But can we believe He never did? I don’t think so. Laughter is human, and Jesus was fully human. Jesus promised that those who mourned would laugh. He mourned; would He not…
Matthew 2 has all the elements of an exodus story. There’s a murderous king, who slaughters Jewish babies. There’s a infant who will be Israel’s future deliverer, saved from the murderous king so He can later return to save His people and lead them to the Promised land. There’s an…
The calendar of Israel was primarily theological, centered on commemorating the salvific acts of God, but also agricultural, celebrating the creation-restoring effects of those salvific acts. The feasts of the first month celebrated the reviving of the world in the Spring, and typified the cutting off of the Savior in…
The chiastic shape corresponds to the shape of human life. This should not surprise us, because we are made in the image of God, and God is manifest in Word and Spirit. If we are living epistles, our lives will look a bit like the literary shape of the books…
Back in January, Venkatesh Rao wrote a fascinating post on the Ribbonfarm blog, discussing different forms of models of narrative. Engaging with Ursula LeGuin’s talk ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ , Rao explores her contrast between the (male) ‘hero narrative’ and the (female) ‘carrier-bag story’, and suggests a third…
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A couple of interesting lectures on Music and Theology in the Christian Systematic Theology group of AAR. Nick Adams offered a very detailed and technical discussion of Messiaen’s Messe de la Pentecote in order to explore some issues in doctrinal change and continuity. He noted that Messiaen employed plainchant and…
A few notes from the ever-stimulating James Jordan, who spoke at a conference in Lancaster, PA this weekend: 1) He connected the opened eyes of Adam and Eve after the fall with the Lord’s seeing in Gen 1, where sight is associated with evaluation and judgment. To say that their…
Reviewing David Hart’s recent book on the tsunami in The Christian Century, Willis Jenkins writes, “Curiously underplaying the resources of his own Eastern Orthodox tradition, Hart only vaguely affirms that creation must be an ‘ecstasy of spiritual intelligence and desire.’ Because he spends himself impugning nature’s vicious ways, he leaves…
John Milbank gave a very long, very dense lecture (amusingly interrupted by microphone problems and a fire-alarm evacuation of the hotel) on Sophiology and theurgy, drawing mainly on Bulgakov. I can’t say that I understood all that was going on, but I resonated to one respondent who asked why Sophia…
John Franke’s lecture at ETS argued that postfoundational theology must be joined to a postcolonial attention to the “margins” of the Christian church. Though the postcolonial point was the thrust of the lecture, I was interested, given some current controversies in which Franke is embroiled, in his clarifications of postfoundationalism.…
Scott Clark presented a paper arguing that imputation was inherent in Luther’s mature understanding of justification, challenging various alternative readings of Luther, particularly those arising from the Finnish Lutherans. He offered a number of helpful points: He gave a quick but helpful overview of the development of Luther studies since…
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