Some ancient lives start with core texts and move out from there.  The canonical gospels are obvious, as are Caesar’s Gallic Wars and Augustine’s Confessions.  But other lives take some…

The gospel of John relates a memorable detail of the crucifixion of Jesus that doesn’t appear in the synoptic gospels: fixed to Jesus’s cross is a sign on which Pontius…

 I always think I know what Romans is about, and then I reread Romans.  I don’t fault the Reformed for fixating on the formulas that confirm Calvin, and I don’t…

In the sixteenth century, Desiderius Erasmus revolutionized homiletics by bringing the insights of Ciceronian and later humanist rhetoric to bear on preaching, and historians of Protestant and Catholic traditions in…

Talk to an American Protestant about her spiritual life, and you’re as likely as not to hear about reading a printed Bible, usually in solitude, for the sake of resisting…

For Americans, in the twenty-first century, the first association between Shakespeare and schools is obvious: we read Shakespeare in school.  Whether we’re thinking of the ubiquitous Romeo and Juliet unit…

I first learned about Pierre Hadot in a John Milbank book, and ever since I’ve read everything of his that I could get my hands on.  Hadot’s revolutionary power resides…

I’ve spent a fair bit of my professional life among devils.  Dante’s gigantic Satan never was much of a talker, but Marlowe’s Mephistopheles and Goethe’s diminished version of Mephisto never…

The New Testament book of Revelation is light on scenes of battle but never hesitates to announce that God has won a battle.  Whether the text implies that a battle…

Stories of spiritual origins often begin as the new way emerges against the dominant traditions of the region.  Thus Siddhartha grows up among the Brahmins and Moses among the Egyptians. …

 When teachers complain about the ways that schools evaluate our teaching–and we do so with frequency and enthusiasm–one of the common refrains has to do with the measuring instruments and…

Ask six Americans what the adjective or the noun “evangelical” means, and you’ll get as many answers.  Ask six historians, and you might get twelve.  But what if you ask…

Most of the world happens when I’m not in the room.  That’s been a guiding principle for me as I’ve read and heard about all kinds of things I’ve never…

 When Amaziah, Priest of the Shrine of Bethel, confronts the prophet Amos for conspiring against King Amaziah, Amos replies with a very specific denial: “I am no prophet, nor a…

Living among human beings gives an observant person plenty of occasions to think about delusion.  Whether one watches the young revolutionary or the aging politician, the conspiracy theorist or the…