Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Understanding Shakespeare’s Biblical references is vital for the interpretation of many, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. For Othello , it is especially important, not only because the interpretation of the play is contested among various approaches — feminist, homosexual, post-colonial, Marxist, Freudian, new historical, and others — but also…
Mike Allen of Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, scores some points in his review of The End of Protestantism . He lodges the fair complaint that my rhetoric sometimes outruns my evidence. He argues that more stress on the present reality of the church’s unity deepens the tragedy of division; divisions…
I begin with two observations. First, on any millennial view, the Christian account of history is progressive, moving from the garden to the city. It is eschatological not only in that there is an end, but that the end is a glorified beginning, not merely a return to origins. To…
The church is a new form of polity that erupts into the world as much as the Son of God comes into the world. It’s a real-world political alternative to the polities of the ancient world. It resolves many of the political dilemmas of the ancient world, though not simply…
In my last post , I explained how Baptists really have a “one-ordinance-one sacrament” ecclesiology. I said this: “what Baptists really believe, in modern parlance, is that there is one ordinance (baptism which is a sign or symbol only) and one sacrament (the Lord’s Supper in which feeding upon Jesus…
One of the most extensive and penetrating responses to the Yoder-Hauerwas attack on Constantiniansm is found in Oliver O’Donovan’s Desire of Nations , in a chapter entitled “The Obedience of Rulers.” O’Donovan defines the word “Christendom” as “a historical idea,” specifically “the idea of a professedly Christian secular political order,…
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In a 2005 article, Daniel Van Slyke explores the use of sacramentum in non-Christian writers from the ancient world. He reiterates the common observation that the term is most often used in military contexts to describe the engagement of soldiers to military service. Livy, for instance, writes that during a…
John Milbank is no nominalist, yet in Beyond Secular Order he insists that the nominalists raised questions that could not simply be answered by a return to Thomas. He points to four questions: Do creatures stand “outside” God in any sense? Does analogy violate the law of non-contradiction (2 things…
My little post on Gender Arianism created some buzz. Some of the responses missed my argument. But that was partly my fault for making the argument so briefly and (perhaps) opaquely. Here's what I hope is a somewhat clearer statement of the argument. In Deep Comedy , I argued that…
It is widely believed that if the world is a causally closed system, then God cannot be involved in the world. He cannot introduce new information. William Dembski ( Being As Communion ) disputes the conclusion. He concedes that “causal closure in a deterministic universe precludes what may be called…
Arians say that the Son isn't eternal God, but a high-level creature. There is a twofold assumption behind Arianism: First, that the Absolute must be un-related. A related Absolute becomes relative to the one to whom it is related. Trinitarian theology rejected this premise and followed Scripture in affirming an…
In his Beginnings of Judaism , Shaye Cohen devotes a chapter to ancient usages of the meaning of the term ioudaizein . It appears only once in extant classical sources, once in the LXX of Esther, once in Paul, two times in Josephus. Most of the ancient uses are from…
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