Paramore’s early “Hallelujah” has an interesting lyric at the start: Somehow everything’s going to fall—right in-to place The pause after “fall” and the lengthening of “right” add to the meaning of the line. It’s a little like: Somehow everything’s going to fall—[and if that’s the case then] let it in-to place The falling of world…
For me, a central point of apocalyptic theology is that the end reveals the beginning and the beginning reveals the end. On the one side, as the history of the world progresses toward its end, the real meaning of the beginning becomes apparent—even to the point of becoming obnoxiously obvious. Specifically, the more that the…
The misuse of scientific concepts within theology causes me exceptional annoyance. After all, before I suddenly switched to theology, I had intended to pursue a doctorate in physics. To be clear, this unfulfilled aspiration does not provide me with any noteworthy credentials. I cannot pretend to have the scientific expertise of, for example, the man…
Ancient pagans had no shortage of gods. In the first century, Varro categorized the Roman gods into three groups: the “certain,” the “uncertain,” and the “chosen.” The latter were the gods more specifically worshipped by Roman tradition. Yet Augustine mocks Varro’s categories with the fact that many of these so-called “chosen” gods performed such trifling…
I’ve recently been reading Thomas Malthus’s 1798 first edition of The Principle of Population because of its significance for Charles Darwin, which I mention in my draft book on evolutionary theology, Evolution and Grace. Darwin was reluctant at first to apply natural selection to humans, but in fact it was Malthus’s teaching in regard to…