Thoughts on ethics, society, politics, religion, philosophy, theology, and everything in between
Mary the mother of Jesus is an extremely important figure in Roman Catholic theology. According to Catholic Church teaching, Mary is the Mother of God, a perpetual virgin, was conceived without original sin (Immaculate Conception) and remained completely sinless, is the Ark of the New Covenant, was assumed bodily into heaven, and is Queen of … Read more
The veneration of saints is an important part of both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox piety. There is a sense, of course, in which all Christians are saints, that is, God’s holy people (Rom 1:7, I Cor 1:2, II Cor 1:1, Eph 1:1, Phil 1:1, Col 1:2). But both of these churches have officially recognized … Read more
According to the Catholic Church, the pope, the bishop of Rome, is the supreme head of the entire Church, having authority over every bishop and every Christian. Further, in 1870, the First Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church officially declared the dogma of papal infallibility: when the pope speaks ex cathedra (officially as the … Read more
What is the Church? This is one of the biggest issues dividing the Protestant and Catholic traditions. According to the Protestant tradition, the Church exists wherever a disciplined community of Jesus’s disciples gathers around the preaching of God’s word and the administration of the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper). According to the Catholic tradition, … Read more
In this series, I will explore some of the key differences between the Protestant and Catholic traditions and explain why, in most of these cases, I believe the Protestant position to be correct. In a previous post, I have already made the case for why the Protestant idea that Scripture alone is our highest Authority … Read more
Apocalyptic Genre Two books of the Bible are of the literary genre known as apocalyptic literature. In the Old Testament, there is the book of Daniel. In the New Testament, there is the book of Revelation. Of the various literary genres found in Scripture, apocalyptic is one of the least well understood and most frequently … Read more
The Psalms occupy a unique place in the canon of Scripture. Most of the writings that make up the Scriptures consist of God’s prophetic words to us, or narratives about God’s dealings with human beings in salvation history. The book of Psalms, on the other hand, is a collection of human prayers addressed to God. … Read more
Theonomy or Dismissal? What does the Old Testament Law have to tell Christians about how they should live today? Christians have given a wide variety of answers to this question. On one end of the spectrum there are theonomists, who believe that the Old Testament Law should be the model for the laws of civil … Read more
The Gospel and Nonviolence “When people with power see things happen of which they disapprove, they drop bombs and send in tanks. When people without power see things of which they disapprove, they smash store windows, blow themselves up in crowded places, and fly planes into buildings. The fact that both methods have proved remarkably … Read more
The past 2,000 years of Church history have been a long and winding road. The early Church tried to do its best to live out the radically countercultural reality of Jesus’s Kingdom in the midst of a hostile culture. But beginning in the fourth century, there was a dramatic transition to Christendom, in which Christianity … Read more