After David sinfully takes a census of Israel (1 Chronicles 21), the threshing site where he builds the altar that arrests the plague becomes the temple site (1 Chronicles 22:1). David begins preparations for the temple. First, he gathers the “strangers” (Heb. ger), non-Israelite residents of the land or from territories David has conquered, and puts them to work hewing stone (22:2; cf. 8:29–40). He mines iron for nails and clamps, and smelts so much bronze that it cannot be... Read more
Like many Renaissance writers, Shakespeare is obsessed with mutability, with the vaporous quality of human life. Nothing remains forever. Kingdoms rise and fall. Monuments erode and decay. People grow old and die. This is one of the regular themes of Shakespeare’s sonnets, focused in part on the beauty of the young man who is addressed in the sonnet. He will not remain a fair youth forever. If he wants to reach immortality, to be remembered, he has to do something... Read more
Like many Renaissance writers, Shakespeare is obsessed with mutability, with the vaporous quality of human life. Nothing remains forever. Kingdoms rise and fall. Monuments erode and decay. People grow old and die. This is one of the regular themes of Shakespeare’s sonnets, focused in part on the beauty of the young man who is addressed in the sonnet. He will not remain a fair youth forever. If he wants to reach immortality, to be remembered, he has to do something... Read more
In Ecclesiastes 9, Solomon urges, “Go, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works.” Joy comes from knowing that God accepts and approves what we do, and, implicitly, accepts and approves us. God finds something in our works to delight Him. That approval brings us joy, and the joy is manifested in a cheery feast of bread and wine. The verb “approve” is the Hebrew ratzah, used to... Read more
Buzzfeed has posted a transcript of a 2014 talk that Trump strategist Steve Bannon gave to a meeting of the Human Dignity Institute, an effort to promote Christian faith in European politics. Bannon’s main target is “crony capitalism,” which was most obviously manifest in the bailout of the banks after the 2008 bubble burst. No one was held responsible, no one was prosecuted. That was the moment, he thinks, when ordinary people realized that neither the political nor the financial... Read more
For years, I’ve highlighted the triple structure of Merchant of Venice: Three romances, three plots (casket, bond, ring), three caskets. But then I’ve forced that triple structure into a dual setting—Belmont and Venice. But the geography of the play is triple too: Shylock’s home is a third space. And once one finally sees that (rather obvious) point, things begin snapping into place like popping corn. The three places form a cosmos: heavenly Belmont, place of music and mysterious lunar beauty;... Read more
Carl Trueman’s review of The End of Protestantism was published in the December 2016 issue of First Things. It’s a fair but critical review, and gives much fuel for further discussion. Here I respond to two main points. First and most extensively: Carl says that I am “unpersuasive” about the way forward toward unity. He quotes a passage in which I describe the cross-fertilization of Christian traditions that is already taking place and will, I hope, continue. He comments, “One... Read more
Is Trump’s election the death rattle of white Christian America? Philip Jenkins doesn’t think so. It’s true that, if trends continue, the US will be a minority-majority nation by mid-century, with no single ethnic group having more than half the population. Mid-century America will be a more diverse place than it is today. But Jenkins makes the commonsensical observation that not all minorities are equal. White Americans will still constitute 45%+ of the population; not a majority but, as Jenkins... Read more
Whatever their later American heirs thought of alcoholic beverages, the Reformers were lovers of beer and wine. For Luther, that goes without saying. Gisela Kreglinger shows (Spirituality of Wine) that Calvin’s views were the same as Luther’s. “We have never been forbidden to laugh, or to be filled, . . . or to delight in musical harmony, or to drink wine” (quoted p. 55), Calvin write. Since “God created food, we shall find that he meant not only to provide... Read more
In his Not Bread Alone, Nathan MacDonald cites the letter to Aristeas, which includes an early Christian attempt to explain the food laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. For Aristeas, the food laws were instructive to human beings. Clean animals ruminate; they encourage us to keep things in memory. Ariesteas write: “all cloven-footed creatures and ruminants quite clearly express, to those who perceive it, the phenomenon of memory. Rumination is nothing but the recalling of (the creature’s) life and constitution, life... Read more
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