The Archive

Every essay.

Jeb RalstonFeatured

Championing an Unknown and Unbeloved Era: A Survey of Heiko A. Oberman’s Life, Work, and Methodology

The Late Middle and Reformation historian, Heiko A. Oberman, has left an indelible impact upon Renaissance and Reformation studies even twenty years after his untimely death. In this article, I seek to give an account of Oberman’s life and legacy, […]

Joshua HeavinFeaturedFormation

Deconversion and the Cross

What has God promised us about our lives, in the here and now? One of the earliest works of Christian theology is Origen of Alexandria’s On First Principles; a case can be made that it is our oldest, extant text […]

Matthew EmersonFeaturedFormation

Descent

At the beginning of The Divine Comedy, in Canto I of Inferno, Dante opens with these famous lines:

Daniel Whyte IVFeatured

No Dust on Me

The third season of His Dark Materials, the television adaptation of British fantasy writer Philip Pullman’s popular trilogy, wrapped up this winter. While the show, airing on the BBC in the UK and on HBO internationally, was looked to as […]

Matthew ArboFeatured

Rules for (Theological) Retrieval

I’ve always been intrigued by archaeology. The expectant digging, the gentle sweeping away of silt and debris, unearthing bones and artifacts hidden for millennia; it’s all endlessly fascinating. A thing lost and long forgotten to humankind suddenly reappears enclosed in […]

Jake MeadorChurch

Evangelistic Postures

(Note: I’m going to be using the short hand from Mike and Skyler’s six-way fracturing article throughout this piece. So if you haven’t read it, start there.) The core problem facing the preservation or formation of conservative Protestant coalitions right […]

Jake MeadorFeaturedChurch

Toward a Renewed Public Protestantism: The Beginnings of a Manifesto

In his book Bad Religion, Ross Douthat suggests that the 1950s were the high water mark for Christianity in America. Amongst other things, church attendance was at its peak and each of America’s four defining ecclesial traditions were relatively strong. […]

Jake Meador

Once More re: the Uselessness of "Christian Nationalism"

Let’s do this one more time. We live in a moment with (somehow!) a uniquely cursed discourse concerning religion and politics. Much of this is connected to “Christian nationalism.” The problem here is that the term as it gets used […]

Jake Meador

The Durant Trade

So for those who don’t know: I’m a lifelong Phoenix Suns fan. My uncle lives in Phoenix and had season tickets so when our family would visit, I’d get to go to the Suns games. Those were the Charles Barkley, […]

Bruce ClarkFeaturedChurchFormation

Epiphany: How an Enchanted World Drew Outsiders to God

A number of years ago, a wise parent shared with me an insight for which I have been repeatedly grateful: One reason God gives us children is so that we adults can [re]discover nature. This has proven true on numerous […]

James WaldenFeaturedCultureEvangelicalism

Niebuhr and Carson, Reconsidered

With the apparent imminent demise of American Christendom, the reaction among evangelicals has covered the gamut: from fight to flight to freeze to fawn. The panic might have increased, but the range hasn’t changed much. Over a decade ago, in […]

Jake MeadorCommunities

Education, Catechesis, and the State

Just before starting second grade, my grandmother Mary died. Though her death was a deep grief to me—we had been quite close and many of my earliest memories involve her—it was not unexpected. She had a myriad of health issues, […]