Theology “Then and Now” More than four years ago, I published my first essay on Conciliar Post. It laid out what I consider to be the first principles of theological reasoning, but it also noted that—like all of us—I am still “on the way.” I stand behind these principles: the centrality of Christ, the contingency of created order, the need for grace, and the soul’s ascent to God. I also stand behind the fact that

Part One Too often we accept without question the conditions that our collective mastery of nature has imposed upon us. In passive acquiescence to these conditions—which are rendered present by today’s pervasive technologies—the human capacity for change becomes limited by “the work of our own hands.” We are trapped within the very environment that we painstakingly endeavored to create. Those who are inattentive to this reality are inevitably pulled toward the gaping maw of habitual

           Today marks the second anniversary of Conciliar Post. Our editorial team would like to take this moment to commemorate all of the excellent work done by each and every member of this community. We want to thank you for growing with us, for journeying with us in faith over our second year. Perhaps most precious are the moments of earnest dialogue: comments sections filled with charitable questions and serious soul-searching; the welcoming of new authors and contributors

Revisiting Mark Noll in 2016 Though it’s had an outsize impact on evangelical intellectual culture, I’d never actually sat down with Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind until this past week. Centrally, Noll (himself a Reformed evangelical) argues that the rise of fundamentalism drove a lasting wedge between mainstream academic inquiry and American Protestant communities. In Noll’s telling, this cleavage led to previously fringe theological positions (six-day creationism, flood geology, strict biblical literalism)

This past Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that marriage equality must be legalized in all fifty states. I returned from a lovely eight mile run out on some of Seattle’s finest trails feeling spiritually refreshed and grateful for God’s gift. This mood, however, was dampened when I checked Facebook and saw Christians from all political leanings angrily posting and bickering with each other about the SCOTUS ruling. Each morning, after

Artificial intelligence is clearly the menace of the cinematic hour. The old menace posed by the Skynet of the “Terminator” franchise has taken on additional credibility in the era of “big data,” which offers the possibility of algorithmic analysis on a heretofore undreamt-of scale. Alex Garland’s recent thriller “Ex Machina,” however, trades guns for words and explosions for psychological turbulence, raising fundamental questions within a deeply intimate context. “Ex Machina” opens as Caleb Smith (Domhnall

For my birthday, a group of Conciliar Post writers banded together for a brilliant round table discussion on the imago dei. Okay, it was coincidentally on my birthday, not in celebration of it. The round table is a fantastic piece that I commend to your reading. In an unusual twist for the internet, the comments section is also full of edifying dialogue. You should go read all of it and come back. I’m not here

At times, I feel within me a burning conviction of the truth of something that is at once more difficult to put into words than the doctrines of my Christian faith yet as clear as crystal to my soul and my seat of “knowing.” When I feel this way, it is time to sit down in front of pen and paper and muddle through until I can capture a solid thought from the elusive world