Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Inspired by the “Moscow Mood” Debate In a shocking 1961 study, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram would don an official-looking white lab coat and tell a volunteer to administer increasing shocks to another “volunteer” in an adjacent room strapped into an “electric chair” just out of sight. The shocks were incrementally…
My title and the substance of the article are borrowed from a section of David Wenham’s excellent book, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? I am appropriating ideas from the pages in his book which address the question, “Why Does Paul refer to Jesus’ Life and Ministry so…
Some of us may be familiar with the notion that the epistle of James is like a New Testament version of Proverbs or other wisdom literature. According to this line of thinking, the epistle of James (together with the other wisdom literature) is basically a collection of timeless sayings without…
This summer I started walking a long trail that ran north from our home. On my best days, I would walk a total of five miles at a brisk pace. This trail follows the power lines that serve a significant portion of North Dallas and stretches far past the two…
I am an Australian. I went to the American Academy of Religion mega-fest last year to meet up with some friends, to present a paper at a ‘science and religion’ panel, and to marvel at the sheer scale of how Americans do things. It was quite a ride. Looking at…
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 We evangelicals do not often understand the roles of men and women in ministry. Because our consumerist culture has gutted the notion of family as it was historically understood, all Biblical passages about women in church ministry (a familial organism) are almost incomprehensible to…
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INTRODUCTION Isaiah prophesies the Babylonian exile, but also promises that Yahweh’s Servant will deliver Israel not only from Babylon but from the numbing effects of her own idolatry. THE TEXT “Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce, whom I have put away? Or which of My creditors is it…
Colossians 2:16-17: Let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day – things which are a shadow of what is to come, but the body of Christ. When Paul talks about regulations…
Food fads come and go, especially in America. Not so long ago, white bread was the miracle food that would perfect and purify. For many today, organic is savior. Food was an issue in the early church, and Paul gives us coordinates for navigating through. First, do not let yourself…
Peter Green writes to offer this further reflection on venomous wine: “The word for ‘serpent’ or ‘dragon’ in Deut 32 is also in Is 27:1—the Song of the Vineyard, Redux. YHWH slays the dragon who produces dragon wine, and then his vineyard is able to ‘fill the whole world with…
In Against Christianity , I made the bold, unsupported, impressionistic claim that theologians are persnickety types who avoid talking about things the Bible talks about: hair, blood, sweat, entrails, menstruation and genital emissions. Matt Jepsen was looking for something a bit more factual, and checked several theologians to see if…
In an article recently published in the Phoenix Law Review , my oldest son, Woelke, explores how the Supreme Court has deployed what William Cavanaugh has called The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict . The Court first mentioned the “myth” in Everson v.…
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