Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We lost Crimea. That is very clear. Putin proved he was not lying when he said he would place women and children ahead of his soldiers to storm Ukrainian military bases. Russian soldiers did exactly that with women (some who volunteered and some who were forced). Russia now occupies all…
Sound is an indicator of life and energy. “Sound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production to exist at all.” Things don’t have to be alive to make themselves visible, and “a primitive hunter can see, feel, smell, and taste an elephant when the…
In the most famous section of his best-known novel, Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov brings forward his case against God. He opens with a horrific litany of outrages against children. Turkish soldiers make a baby laugh and then shoot a pistol into his face. A little girl is beaten, thrashed, kicked by…
At the heart of Esther Lightcap Meek's splendid Little Manual for Knowing is a concept she picked up from Michael Polanyi, "subsidiary-focal integration." The concept begins from the insight that all our knowing, all our experience, is double. We focus on something, but we are capable of "indwelling" that focal…
Jesus promises the overcomers of Pergamum "hidden manna" and a "white stone." The hidden manna is often linked with the manna stashed away in the ark of the covenant. The white stone has proved more elusive. Exodus tells us that manna was white (Exodus 16:31) and like bdellium (Numbers 11:7),…
Leviticus 23 begins with a reference to “Yahweh’s appointed times” ( mo’ade-YHWH ). Mo’ed is the common term for the feasts of Israel. A few dimensions to this term. First, it means “appointed time” or “designated time.” It is a time set by Yahweh. Yahweh has claimed certain times as…
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Hans Schaller has some profound reflections on asking in his contribution to Asking and Thanking (Concilium) , p. 3 . Disputing Seneca, he says that asking is a fundamental human form of communication, for two reasons. First, “The strength of trust, whether between God and human beings or between human…
In his fourteenth-century Summa praedicantium, Johannes de Bromyard offers this lovely description of a creation returning thanks: “For if the flowers continuously taking in the rays of the sun ceaselessly render back bright colors and scent, it follows by a stronger reason that we who day and night constantly receive…
I offer some thoughts on the church’s response to the current debates and crises in American health care at http://www.firstthings.com/
Caleb Dalechamp wrote in his delightfully titled 1632 book, Christian Hospitalitie Handled Common-Place-Wise that “Hospitalitie falsely so called is the keeping of a good table, at which seldome or never any other are entertained then kynsfolk, friends and able neighbours . . . . This is no hospitalitie, though it…
In the aforementioned article on giving in the early church, Neil makes this intriguing comment about the Old Testament and Jewish understanding of “the poor”: “Justice for the poor is a strong theme in rabbinic texts. Injunctions to act justly towards the poor are evident in the earliest books of…
I n a 2010 essay on “Models of Gift Giving in the Preaching of Leo the Great” in the Journal of Early Christian Studies , Bronwen Neil answers the title question with a depressing, Not much. While the early church took over the Jewish and New Testament rhetoric on behalf…
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