Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Utopia is often accompanied by such adjectives as impossible, unrealistic, and impractical. In spite of that, it is not so hard to find some renowned people who actually maintain that is a very helpful and practical concept. Zygmunt Bauman ( Socialism: The Active Utopia ) argues that “utopian thinking belongs…
C. S. Lewis was no fan of the cinema. He once described himself as “rather allergic to films” and after attending one he added in a letter to a friend, “Do not worry it shall not become a habit.” But though he was quick to dismiss films, his fruitful discussion…
Noted Catholic patristic scholar, Robert Louis Wilken, delivered the second annual Nevin Lectures at Beeson Divinity School's Hodges Chapel last Friday and Saturday, February 20-21, 2015. Wilken, the Emeritus William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia, traced the influence of the writings…
I confess that I’m surprised by the number of Christians who are surprised by the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey . Many are simply bewildered by the buzz the movie has generated. They shouldn’t be. This is the world we live in. More precisely, this is the country we…
The newer perspective on justification by faith advocated in various studies in Pauline Theology by N.T. Wright and others, is now utterly relevant to our historical situation. Such work cannot be merely avant garde theologizing. In Luther’s day, everyone was “in” as regards the Church and the faith. We were…
Over the centuries, Christians have fasted for many reasons. Sometimes, the reasons have been good. The apostles and their churches fasted and prayed before selecting elders or ordaining missionaries. Christians have fasted in mourning for their sins. They have fasted and prayed to combat demons and to plead with God…
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Aseity is the property that describes a being’s self-causation. In theology, to speak of divine aseity is to say that God exists in and of Himself. He is not derived from or dependent upon anything else. He is fully Himself in Himself and of Himself. He is a se .…
Naomi Koltun-Fromm argues ( Hermeneutics of Holiness ) that the concepts of purity and holiness, while normally distinct in the Hebrew Bible, are blurred in some passages where qadash is used in contexts that speak of purity and purification rather than of consecration. In 1 Samuel 21:6, David says that…
Explaining Ezra’s concern about the mixed marriages in the restoration community, Naomi Koltun-Fromm ( Hermeneutics of Holiness ) writes, “Ezra presents Israel not only as holy but as a qodesh in its own right—a freestanding holy thing, a holy seed, a sanctum. As such, it must be protected (or in…
In his contribution to Seeing Things Their Way , Richard Muller discusses and commends the recent effort to free church history from denominational apologetics. When the Reformers are viewed in the light of late medieval theology (as in the work of Heiko Oberman), unexpected commonalities appear: “Common ground can be…
At the end of Albert Camus’s The Stranger , the narrator is on death row for killing an Arab. Death is familiar to him. It is the “black wind” that has blown through his entire life. For Camus’s Stranger, the inevitability of death makes life indifferent. It does not matter…
In his recent Zero to One , Peter Thiel sets out a neat typology of philosophy, politics, and cultural attitudes based on differing stances toward the future. He distinguishes optimists and pessimists, and subdivides each into “definite” and “indefinite.” Optimists and pessimists are obvious: One is bullish about the future,…
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