Over the past couple of years, I’ve written a fair bit about Black theology. It’s a big and broad tradition that deserves consideration on its own terms, so I encourage you to check out all of my previous posts that attempted to promote its voices with as little editorializing comment from me as possible. (And, … Continue reading ‘I Am a Man’: The Theology of Black Resistance
It will come as no shock to any of you to say that we are in a low moment in terms of public discourse. Everything seems to go from zero to furious in about two seconds. As discouraging as this is, it’s nothing new. There seems to be nothing more human than exaggerating the details … Continue reading Jesus and the Stories We Tell: A Reflection on Luke 13.1-9
Today’s post will be unique in this series, Theology from under the Rubble, for it is the only one that engages with a strictly personal, rather than national, calamity. But, our private tragedies are no less serious for the life of faith — and in some ways they can feel worse, since we are in … Continue reading Finding God in Suffering: John Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
In 410 AD, Rome was sacked by an army of Visigoths, setting off a crisis — of identity no less than politics — within the Roman Empire. Everything its citizens had believed to be certain and secure now seemed up in the air. It raised big questions about the relationship between God, the Church, traditional … Continue reading This World is Not Our Home: St Augustine and the Sack of Rome
Imitation has a bumpy reputation in Western culture today. In the world of things, imitation is often equivalent to ‘false’ or even ‘substandard’, as in the case of imitation leather or imitation crab. In the world of art, literature, and education, it is at best understood as a lack of unique contribution, and at worst … Continue reading Imitated, Never Duplicated: A Reflection on Philippians 3.17-4.1
Matthew Root 