Theology and imagination in Robert Musil’s works

Robert Musil is one of the least widely read of the great European modernist writers, yet his work occupies a distinctive place in twentieth-century intellectual culture. His fiction is neither conventionally religious nor militantly anti-religious. It explores the spiritual exhaustion of modern civilisation, the collapse of moral certainty, and the persistent human longing for transcendence …

The Marrow of Theology and the Marrow Controversy

The Marrow Controversy and the โ€œMarrow Menโ€ are frequently confused with the theological workย The Marrow of Theology, but the two are historically and conceptually distinct, despite sharing the word โ€œmarrowโ€ in their titles. The confusion is understandable because both emerged from the broader Reformed and Puritan world and both sought to articulate the essential substance …

The Marrowing of Scottish Presbyterian Divinity

The Marrow Controversy was one of the most significant theological disputes in eighteenth-century Scottish Presbyterianism. Although it emerged within a specific ecclesial and historical setting, its underlying questions remain deeply relevant: What is the relationship between grace and obedience? How should the gospel be preached? Can assurance of salvation coexist with serious holiness? And what …

Sydneyโ€™s forgotten zig-zag railway

The historic Thornleigh zig zag railway, in Sydney's north, was the third and apparently final such transportation infrastructure built in New South Wales. It is also the least known of the three tracks. A zig zag railway, also called a switchback railway, is a method for climbing or descending steep terrain where a direct railway …

A critical defence of Christian anarchism

Christian anarchism is a theological and political doctrine holding that ultimate authority belongs to God rather than the state, and that the teachings and example of Jesus radically undermine coercive power, violence, domination, and nationalism. Christian anarchists typically emphasise the practice of nonviolence, voluntary community, mutual aid, economic justice, and radical discipleship shaped by the …