Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Not long ago, I heard these statistics about New York City: New York City is in $100 billion in debt. 20% of all NYC residents are on food stamps, which cost $250 million a month. 5% of NYC population are on disability, costing $252 million a month. Other assistance costs…
1. All political power is ambivalent. Vertical violence of “the state” tends to limit horizontal and contested power between people and between tribes. “The State” brings new oppression, but also a measure of new peace and unity. 2. All political formations are ambiguous like this: a strong family conquers weaker…
Gnosticism by any other name would smell the same. But does the church have much of a theological sense of smell, these days, when it comes to the seductions of virtuality in our worshipping communities? Social isolation during a global pandemic makes good public health sense, but whether church should…
It is a remarkable thing, you know, this thing called priority. Just a few weeks ago, religious leaders were boldly asserting in their high-dollar online videos that it was too dangerous to return to worship and that we needed to listen to our political and health leaders. "They are the…
Somewhere in the city of Jerusalem on a rooftop just a few years after the ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit on Pentecost. . . ". . . and just when are you guys going to live up to your ‘Sons of Thunder’ reputation? Huh? A lot…
In my book, Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men ( Amazon , Kindle ) I mention that Solomon portrays wisdom as a woman. But I don’t ask (or answer!) why he did so. Solomon uses the figure of Lady Wisdom without apology or explanation: Wisdom cries aloud in the street,…
Showing page 66 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
A few thoughts on the “General Prologue” to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales . 1) The Prologue sets the stage for a multi-layered set of tales. The real-life Chaucer is, of course, the author, but in the Prologue, he introduces a fictional version of himself as narrator: It happened in that season…
In an essay on “Eschatology” in the Blackwell Companion to Political Theology , the late Robert Jenson argues that Christian eschatology is “directly and almost exclusively a discourse about politics.” The coming of the kingdom means that “the eschaton-polity” Israel hoped for, “the universal polity of peace, appeared as a…
The world’s most interesting man, Matthew B. Crawford, offers a brilliant and chilling diagnosis of “How Science Has Been Corrupted” at UnHerd . The hinge of his analysis is the “dissonance between our idealised image of science, on the one hand, and the work ‘science’ is called to do in…
Caryll Houselander begins her Passion of the Infant Christ with a meditation on seeds and sowing. “The countryman is not impatient,” she writes, “when flowers and fruit disappear and winter lingers.” His seed is in the ground, and he is “as conscious of life in winter, when the crust of…
Law, writes Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule ( Common Good Constitutionalism ), is “a reasoned ordering to the common good,” or, in the words of the Roman jurist Ulpian, “the art of goodness and fairness” (1). Public officials “have a duty, and corresponding authority, to promote the common good” (1).…
For centuries, Eucharistic piety has been distorted by ocular metaphors. We long to “see” Jesus at the table, but the bread and wine form a “veil.” Eucharistic desire is the desire to rend the veil of bread to enter into extra-festive spiritual communion. The ocular emphasis of Eucharistic piety pops…
Showing page 7 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
