Month: May 2021
Beatitudes: “The Merciful”
Continuing the series of discussions on the Beatitudes, Matt, Alastair, and Derek come to “Blessed are the merciful.” Mercy is a virtue that has enormous possibilities for social transformation. It is so central to God’s identity and to ours as...
Book Review: Reparations by Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson
I In Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance & Repair (Brazos Press, 2021), Presbyterian Church in America ministers Duke L. Kwon and Gregory Thompson lay out their biblical and historical case for the American church making reparations to African Americans....
Racism and Whiteness: Bad Words We Have to Live With
Like anyone who has thought about the problem of race for more than five minutes, I find the topic of language and terminology vexing. Terms like racism, anti-blackness, ethnocentric, antiracist, white supremacy, whiteness, prejudice, (and now quite unfortunately) woke or...
What Theonomy Gets Wrong About the Law
Theonomy talk has resurfaced. Perhaps, this is the Protestant-evangelical concomitant to the Integralist debate presently occupying politically astute Catholicism. I welcome it. If nothing else, it means that Christians are taking politics (and public morality) seriously again. A robust debate...
‘Baptism,’ with Dr. Peter Leithart
We need a renewal of baptismal imagination. Peter Leithart joins Andrew, Alastair, and Derek to help point the way towards that renewal. Did you know that baptism implies an anthropology that cuts across the grain of our modern notion of...
A Conversation with Lydia Dugdale, MD: “The Lost Art of Dying”
How are we supposed to die? As a resident physician and fellow of Duke’s Theology, Medicine, & Culture Initiative, I’m convinced that this question will only become more pressing for Christians. Medicine is among the most powerful forces shaping how...
Water is a Single Substance
Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps (Ps. 148:7) Water is a single substance. Each and every instantiation of the liquid merges with every other. Each molecule composes the same body, longing for union with its...
Know Thyself: What Medieval Christians Teach Us About Humility
“Are Americans humble?” a family member asked as I explained part of my dissertation on medieval humility to him. “Um… I don’t really think so. Not generally,” I awkwardly mumbled. This answer was unsatisfactory; firstly, because I bungled it. Secondly,...
The Austen Years: A Review in Six Movements
Rachel Cohen. The Austen Years: A Memoir in Five Novels. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2020. 304 pp, $28. “We do not enjoy a story fully at the first reading. Not till the curiosity, the sheer narrative lust, has been...
Review: Cajetan on Sacred Doctrine by Hieromonk Gregory Hrynkiw
Hieromonk Gregory Hrynkiw. Cajetan on Sacred Doctrine. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020. 352 pp. $75 If your theological education was anything like mine, you learned that Tommaso de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan, was Martin Luther’s grand inquisitor....