Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Every attempt to understand the Christian sacraments makes use of comparisons or analogies with other rituals, events, or customs. Calvin and those who followed him, for example, spoke of the sacraments as “seals,” and compared them to the “seal of approval” that an official impresses on a document. Thinking about…
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy has pointed out in his essay "Hitler and Israel, or On Prayer" (available for $2.00 from Biblical Horizons ) that it is God’s word "No!" that establishes in a culture the distinction between the Creator and the creature. The Bible repeatedly says "No!" to every human attempt to…
If you missed Gattaca at the movie theaters, you can probably check it out from your local video store now. And you should. This is one of those relatively rare thought-provoking movies that can stand being watched with brain in gear more than once. It is also poetic, sensitive, visually…
Part 4: The Nephilim Factor Western Civilization partakes of what I call "the Nephilim Factor." The Enoch Factor means that the pagans get there first. This is both a blessing and a danger. As a blessing, it means that they work out techniques of dominion over the lower creation that…
The Worship Service Then the one speaking with me took me by the hair and lifted me into the air in the middle of the great room. And as I watched, I saw people entering the room to the sound of the great bells outside. Then entered from all four…
Part 3: Philosophy (continued) If we realize that human beings are the images of God, and that man hates God, then we realize that all non-Christian political philosophy is founded on a fundamental hatred of other human beings, a hatred manifest in contempt. Rome, like Enoch, was founded on the…
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T racing the pre-history of European modernity that started with the Cartesian cogito , Enrique Dussel ( Underside of Modernity , 135-6) calls attention to the role of European exploration and conquest in the Americas. Modernity doesn’t begin with Descartes, but with the European discovery of the new world. From…
T here were many Dick Turpins, writes James Sharpe in his study of the mythical English highwayman. There was “the son of John and Mary Turpin, born in Essex in 1705, who was a butcher by trade, drifted into crime, became a notorious highwayman, and was eventually executed at York…
B ruce Ellis Benson ( Improvisation of Musical Dialogue ) doesn’t think that “the binary schema of ‘composing’ and ‘performing,’ which goes along with the construal of music making as being primarily about the production and reproduction of musical works” describes “what musicians actually do.” In place of the binary…
I n his elegant study of Reformation commemorations ( Remembering the Reformation ), Thomas Albert Howard notes that the first centenary of the 95 Theses started out as an ecumenical effort. Elector Friedrich V of the Rhineland Palatinate hoped to “reduce tensions between Lutheran and Calvinist members” of the Protestant…
T he Reformation was highly improbably, writes Andrew Pettegree in his lively, vivid Brand Luther : “that a monk who into his thirtieth year had published nothing, and who shared the conventional education of other churchmen, should somehow reinvent himself as a writer and polemicist of astonishing power.” More, “in…
T he Chronicler’s account of David bringing the ark of the covenant to Zion takes up several chapters of 1 Chronicles. Chapters 13-15 describe two ark processions, and chapter 16 describes the organization of the ark tent and its worship in Jerusalem. The first section, chapters 13-15, is chiastically organized:…
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