Bruce D. Marshall

Jesus promises his followers that they will be hated in this world. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates . . . . Continue Reading »

In the late summer of 1977, I made my way to New Haven, Connecticut, not yet twenty-two years old and afire to study theology at Yale Divinity School. At that innocent dawn of my theological life, I was surprised to discover that not everybody at YDS shared my passion for theology. People had other . . . . Continue Reading »

Some years ago, during a national meeting of Catholic theologians, a group gathered to discuss John Paul II’s apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae. The Vatican and the bishops were evidently serious about enforcing its requirement that Catholic professors of theology in Catholic institutions . . . . Continue Reading »

Catholics in the last fifty years or so have almost completely ceased to do dogmatic theology. Save for a handful of admirable holdouts, we have practically given up the fruitful enterprise of a millennium: the believing mind’s effort to understand the Christian mysteries. The deep things of God, . . . . Continue Reading »

A few days after Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, a distinguished Lutheran theologian happened to meet up with a Catholic colleague of long acquaintance. “You should be very happy,” the Lutheran observed. “Why?” his friend wondered in reply. “Because you have just elected the . . . . Continue Reading »

Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Mark 10:21). How shall we take these words of Jesus? Most readers will recognize Jesus’ injunction to self-sacrifice for the poor, but what shall we make of the thought that our gifts yield “treasure . . . . Continue Reading »

Future historians of Christianity may well describe the century just past as the age of ecumenism; some have already given it that label. Yet the modern ecumenical movement has almost completely failed to attain its one overriding goal: the reunion of divided Christian communities. The great labor . . . . Continue Reading »