Todd Brewer

1. The highlight of this past week for me comes from David Brooks’s deep dive into historical Jesus research. Much of who Jesus was is perfectly intelligible within his Jewish context: his miracles, his teachings, or his willful poverty. But Brooks, like Ernst Käsemann before him, still finds Jesus to be an entirely anomalous Jewish […]

Beyond High-Flying Acrobatics: The Winning Formula is the Logic of the Gospel

From The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle: He did not wait till the world was ready, till men and nations were at peace. He came when the Heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out for release. He did not wait for the perfect time. He came when the need […]

Mary, about to give birth, treks down with Joseph to the backwater town of Bethlehem to fulfill Caesar’s census decree. They arrive at Joseph’s hometown and are greeted by “no vacancy” signs at all hotels, and the Airbnb’s have just been banned by the municipal authorities. The snow begins to fall. They are jet-lagged from […]

People don’t say it often enough: Jesus was pretty weird. He cleared out the Temple with a butter knife (so to speak), he laughed off death threats from Herod, and he regularly insulted his dinner hosts. Jesus held a patent disregard for social graces and conventions. When given the chance, he did or said the […]

I stood a few steps away from my young daughter at a playground, watching her wait patiently as all the boys dashed in front of her and repeatedly took her toys away. Sometimes they would ask, but usually not. I stood there feeling a little helpless, not sure if I should intervene, wondering whether any […]

1a. This week featured a point-counter-point on the religious decline in America. Fewer people are going to church, particularly millennials. Accordingly, Christine Emba sees genuine cause for alarm. Millennials prefer low-cost, substitute religions (read: seculosities!), and the church may not be there as a fallback option in the future: Faith and practice can’t persevere through […]

When it comes to the treatment of mental health, many of the therapeutic approaches taken today tend to be highly individualized. The afflicted person goes (alone) to see a therapist, who provides a resources or insight to aid the patient. The broad successes of this approach speaks for itself. Mental health professionals so often see […]

Recently I had the privilege of sitting down to interview Susan Grove Eastman to talk about her recently published book, Paul and the Person. Dr. Eastman is the Associate Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, and her book is a fascinating read. Paul and the Person breaks new ground on the complex issue […]

What do you get when you cross Sherlock Holmes with Pope Francis and Arthur Weasley? You get a slightly bumpling but brilliant Catholic priest who moonlights as a murder detective. “Father Brown” is the literary creation of G.K. Chesterton, and the BBC show based on him is now airing on Netflix in its entirety. I […]