Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For many people the date October 31 is significant not only for being the Eve of All Saints (All Hallows Eve, Halloween) but as the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. These theses were a list of…
It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter. "Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint,"…
The following is an excerpt from Peter Leithart's forthcoming two-volume commentary on Revelation (T&T Clark). Y ou must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings,” a voice tells John (Rev. 10:11). Then someone gives him a “reed like a rod” and instructs him to measure (11:1).…
Josiah is an ideal Davidic king in many ways. He not only “did right,” but he “walked in the ways of his father David” and “did not turn aside to the right or to the left” (2 Chronicles 34:2). At the age of 16, he began to seek Yahweh, and…
One of the best discussions of Augustine’s views on time comes from Jeremy Begbie’s Theology, Music, and Time (ch. 3). Following Paul Ricoeur, Begbie claims that Augustine’s distentio “is conceived as the three-fold present, and the threefold present as distentio . The distentio consists in the non-coincidence of the mind’s…
This has always been the position of the Christian Church, and from an historical perspective the present situation in evangelicalism is appalling. The early liturgies of the Church, which are still used in Episcopal and Lutheran worship, are laced with psalm phrases. The early hymns, such as the Te Deum…
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Rebutting Jonathan Last’s portrait of Batman as the comic book answer to liberalism, Travis Smith (writing at the Weekly Standard site) argues that Spiderman is the better antidote to modernity: “The essential difference between Spider-Man and Batman can be detected in their styles: Spidey’s banter is full of quips and…
In his contribution to Gifts and Interests (Morality and the Meaning of Life) , Jacques Godbout suggests that the freedoms of modernity are “founded on the immediate and permanent liquidation of debt.” In the market, all debts are immediately canceled: You give me goods over the counter, I give you…
So, the prose is a overwrought, but Robert Raynolds vividly captures the giftiness of gratitude in a couple of passages in his 1961 prose-poem, In Praise of Gratitude . Returning from a visit to Mexico as a young man, he pays a visit to the woman who will become his…
In his L’ingratitude: Conversation sur notre temps (French Edition) , Alain Finkielkraut cites Roland Barthes’s inaugural lecture at the College of France: “Language, as performance of the language system, is neither reactionary nor progressive. It is simply fascist: for fascism is not the prohibition of saying things but the obligation…
Protestants are often charged with unleashing the social solvents of individualism on the world. The Reformers didn’t see things that way. In fact, they claimed to be standing for community against the corrosive individualism of the medieval Mass. Hence Calvin writes ( Institutes 4.18.7). He begins with “The Supper itself…
In a 2007 article in the Scottish Journal of Theology , Piotr Malysz challenges William Cavanaugh’s reading of Luther’s eucharistic theology. According to Cavanaugh, Luther’s theology created a dualism between “exchange” and “gift,” and turned the latter into a supernatural “intrusion” into the transactionist patterns of normal social life. Malysz…
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