Category: Theology and Practice
On The Traditionalists and the Protestants
Ross Douthat had a fascinating interview this past weekend in the New York Times with Cardinal Raymond Burke, a leader in conservative American Catholicism who has been consistently pushed toward the margins of church life under Pope Francis. At the risk...
Anatomy of Glory
Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins by saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to ‘Our Mother which art in...
On The Baptist Faith and Message and Theistic Evolution
Note from Jake: On rare occasions we run anonymously published pieces. This is one such occasion. My reasoning is basically explained in the author’s post near the conclusion. The goal of publishing this isn’t to start a vicious online debate,...
The Centrality of Christian Freedom in Protestant Theology
On Christian Freedom is one of three monumental treatises of the Reformation written by Martin Luther in 1520. The work was foundational in defining the theological emphases of the Protestant Reformation, of which Luther himself was a key figure. The...
“Are You Alone Wise?”: Luther’s Answers for Today’s Protestants
A decade after he began advocating for reform, Martin Luther had become highly attuned to the fundamental issues at stake in the debates with his adversaries. Having made Sola Scriptura his rallying cry, he was forced to face the chaos...
Jesus, Laughter, and the Bright Side of Life
I recall, 20 or so years ago, how stunned I was when I first saw the conclusion of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. A clever film which is ultimately more about people than anything else, it tells the story of...
Farmers and Humanists in an Age of Crisis: Technology, Death, and Resurrection
As a teenager at my parents’ small-town church, I heard men in business suits express relief that they made it out of the farm where they grew up. “I got out,” they would say. The implication: I moved up. I...
Are America’s Megachurches Too Big to Fail?
2008 introduced us to the idea of something being “too big to fail.” In that case it was our nation’s largest banks. They had grown so large and played such a decisive role in our nation’s economy that our national...
Five Theses on Preaching
(originally posted on Resident Theologian) 1. The principal subject matter for preaching, always and everywhere, is the triune God of Israel attested and revealed in the good news about Jesus, the Lord and Messiah of Israel. If a sermon could...
Against An Economy Financed by Human Bodies
By Andreas Vesalius During my teenage years, I experienced periods of intense disdain for my physicality. In becoming fully aware of my sexuality and my existence as a sexual being, I came to oppose such an existence. I envied the...