Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We lost Crimea. That is very clear. Putin proved he was not lying when he said he would place women and children ahead of his soldiers to storm Ukrainian military bases. Russian soldiers did exactly that with women (some who volunteered and some who were forced). Russia now occupies all…
Sound is an indicator of life and energy. “Sound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production to exist at all.” Things don’t have to be alive to make themselves visible, and “a primitive hunter can see, feel, smell, and taste an elephant when the…
In the most famous section of his best-known novel, Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov brings forward his case against God. He opens with a horrific litany of outrages against children. Turkish soldiers make a baby laugh and then shoot a pistol into his face. A little girl is beaten, thrashed, kicked by…
At the heart of Esther Lightcap Meek's splendid Little Manual for Knowing is a concept she picked up from Michael Polanyi, "subsidiary-focal integration." The concept begins from the insight that all our knowing, all our experience, is double. We focus on something, but we are capable of "indwelling" that focal…
Jesus promises the overcomers of Pergamum "hidden manna" and a "white stone." The hidden manna is often linked with the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant. The white stone has proved more elusive. Exodus tells us that manna was white (Exodus 16:31) and like bdellium (Numbers 11:7),…
Leviticus 23 begins with a reference to “Yahweh’s appointed times” ( mo’ade-YHWH ). Mo’ed is the common term for the feasts of Israel. A few dimensions to this term. First, it means “appointed time” or “designated time.” It is a time set by Yahweh. Yahweh has claimed certain times as…
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I n their just-released Decolonization: A Short History , Jan Jansen and Jurgen Osterhammel observe that decolonization not only remade the maps of former colonies, but also involved the “Europeanization of Europe” and produced changes in political norms and expectations. “Decolonization,” they write “led to ‘Europe falling back on itself,'…
Christopher Caldwell's review of Walter McDougall's The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy is sooo good. McDougall explains (as his subtitle has it) “How America's Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest.” That betrayal arises from several sources. One is the vagueness of American civil religion, which means, Caldwell says, that it…
T he joint Lutheran-Catholic reflection on the Reformation, From Conflict to Communion , acknowledges that medieval Catholicism was muddled on Eucharistic sacrifice. As a result of a “loss of an integrative concept of commemoration, Catholics were faced with the difficulty of the lack of adequate categories with which to express…
F rom Conflict to Communion , the Lutheran-Catholic commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, offers a summary of Luther's theology, particularly on the points of dispute between Catholics and Lutherans. They offer the following summary of Luther's claim that believers remain simul iustus et peccator , simultaneously just…
1 Chronicles 18–20 record David's wars with immediate neighbors of Israel. The chapters are organized chiastically: A. War with Philistia and Moab, 18:1 B. War with Ammon, Aram, and Edom, 18:2-13 C. David reigns with justice and righteousness, 18:14-17 B'. War with Ammon and Aram, 19:1-20:3 A'. War with Philistia,…
1 Chronicles 18–20 brings together David's conquests into a neatly packaged unit. (In Samuel, the same wars are scattered over several chapters.) By the end of chapter 20, David has established control over greater Israel, the ideal kingdom promised to Abraham (Genesis 15), stretching from the Euphrates (18:4) to the…
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