Sociology

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:00 am by Peter Leithart

Sociology 2017-09-07T00:00:22+06:00 Peter Leithart

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A summary of some arguments from Part II of Milbank’s book.It is important to Milbank’s approach that he does not treat sociology as a “discipline” but as a worldview, philosophical standpoint, or theological perspective. He calls it a theology and a church in disguise, offering an account of history that is irreconcilable with Christianity’s. He makes two subordinate points.

First, Milbank wants to show that theology entered into the construction of sociology, and he spends a good bit of one chapter reviewing several 19th-century Catholic social theorists and showing the continuity between their metaphysical assumptions that those of Durkheim and Comte. Again, the point is that theology has helped to construct a secular sphere, and he locates a heresy regarding the role of secondary causes in the doctrine of providence.

Second, sociology and especially the sociology of religion is not politically neutral but is a part of the intellectual “policing” of the boundaries between religion and secular public. Sociology guards the public, secular realm from incursions by religion. It is part of secular reason’s self-defense system. Sociology is not merely studying an object called “secular society” that lies obvious and open to investigation, but rather in its studying of secular society, it is at the same time constituting and defending its existence. This is the sense in which sociology is a church: it is a church that evangelizes for private religion and secular public sphere.

Milbank discusses the development of sociology in three phases: the French phase that culminated with Emile Durkheim, the German sociology particular of Weber, and the sociology of religion in various manifestations. I won’t deal with particular writers, but look at some general features of his critique.

Sociology arose out the questions left by liberalism and political science, particularly the relation of the individual to society. The question is posed as, “do individuals construct society? Or does society construct individuals?” Milbank, for his own part, thinks this is just a fundamental antinomy or aporia of social reality that we cannot get round. Both are true, and neither should be given priority over the other. I think Milbank’s is the only sensible answer to this question.

But sociology, for philosophical reasons, was not satisfied with this, and instead took “society” as a basic fact, indeed as the basic fact, prior to politics or the setting up of goals or aspirations for individuals, prior to culture and religion. Unlike liberal political science, sociologists do not seek to explain social phenomena. Society is not something to be explained, but is an explanation. Milbank claims that the specifically sociological method is to trace particular political or economic or cultural facts to their social “causes.”

To take a rather sophisticated example: Mary Douglas has developed a theory of society and religion based on the two factors of group and grid. The intensity of direct social pressure is group (a small group, with lots of face to face interaction, would be strong group) and the degree of social classification is grid (eg. Military would be high grid, since it has rigid rules bounding behavior within particular roles). She tries to predict the style of religion, the cardinal virtues, ideas of self, and art forms from the interactions of these two factors. She tries to explain the entire worldview of a society based on the predictive power of these social factors.

Provocatively, Milbank’s response is not that sociology is reductive because it seeks to reduce religion and culture to social factors. His far more radical contention is that there is nothing purely “social” that can be isolated from cultural, political and religious factors. Cultural and religious factors and the issues of power are, in his constant phrase, “always already” there. Religion (perhaps not invariably) enters into the very formation of the social structure. Rrelated to this is Milbank’s objection that sociology is ahistorical, and its claim that “society” is an unchanging underlying reality that grounds culture and religion must be contested. In short, sociology is not reductive; the problem is that there is no “social” to which everything else can be reduced.

We can apply Milbank’s insight here to Douglas’s model. She finds that social factors link up with cosmology such that there is a homology between the type of society (the interaction of grid and group in her terms) and the understanding of sin, virtue, and the dominant symbols. Milbank responds, Sure there is a “fit,” but the question is the direction of causation and the more basic question of whether we can find a single cause for a complex cultural reality. Douglas’s claim and all similar sociological claims can be turned around: The reason why there is a fit is because the religious/cosmological beliefs have actually formed the society in a particular way. It is not because a group has a “strong group” structure that it is millennial, but rather it has a strong-group structure because it is millennial. There is no way to pry social structure and cosmology apart and prove that one causes the other. The claim of “social” causation can always be turned around the other way.

Milbank offers historical counter examples to refute the notion that the “social” can be isolated so as to become a causal factor. In the medieval town, the very existence of independent guilds and corporations is due to the influence of Christianity. Political life is imbued with religious norms. Economics, through mechanisms such as the just price, are influenced by ethical norms. Where is “the social” factor that can explain these things? It simply doesn’t exist as a separate factor. The more social order is “inside” religion, the less one is capable of isolating social factors and using them to explain religion.

Related to this criticism is his charge that Weberian sociology treats religion as in essence a private and individual reality, that is, an extra-social reality. Weber says that religion begins with a charismatic leader who draws people through the force of his personal magnetism but once the leader is gone, and the original excitement goes, to continue the religion has to come up with ritual forms, creeds, structures of government, or else it will simply die away. Berger has a similar conception of the development of religion. Milbank rightly points out that religion is essentially social. There was no moment when Christianity did not have strong ecclesial emphasis. The social forms, the ritual, the teaching (if not formal creeds) are always already there. Even the “charismatic” founder Jesus comes into an existing social-religious order, and his charisma is charisma only against the background of Jewish Messianic expectation, and all its associated “cultural” and “social” features.

On Weber, Milbank writes, “The problem with his whole sociology is that he makes religion, in its essence, to be an extra-social affair, and only provides ‘social explanations’ . . . for religious organization, and religious doctrine — both being seen as ‘secondary’ phenomena . . . To disseminate itself, a religion requires narratives, doctrines, consistent norms — but one should note, against Weber, that it is quite impossible to define the supposedly initial, ‘charismatic’ assumptions in abstraction from these categories. A religion commences in its dissemination.&

#148; Later, he adds that charismatic leadership, innovation and development in religions take the form of a re-reading and a re-formation of existing texts and symbols: “Individuals who set their ‘personal’ authority over against established texts, norms, and customs, have always already begun to ‘perpetuate’ themselves in the form of a re-textualization, a re-normalization.” This is certainly how Christianity began, not with a charismatic individual without texts and rites but with a re-interpretation of the existing texts and rites.

Why would sociology treat “society” as a separate factor that can be used as an explanation for religion and culture? Part of the reason is the commitment of sociology to what Milbank calls the “liberal protestant metanarrative.” By “liberal protestant metanarrative” Milbank means a particular story, an account of universal history, that traces various stages in man’s religious development from magic through the salvation religions, and to the modern religion of individualism, privatized religion, ethics and humanity. Rather than seeing this as a matter of contingent changes within Christian ethos and doctrine, Weber and Troeltsch see this as the gradual unveiling of what was latent in Christianity all along, the gradual unveiling of the universal truth of religion. There is a kind of Hegelian necessity to the development.

Milbank objects to this largely because of its historicism. It universalizes and declares inevitable what is a particular and contingent history. He would not deny that in an ultimate sense, this history is the product of the providential guidance of God but he insists that the traditional Christian view says that God’s guidance of history is mysterious and difficult to discern. And he asks, how does one show that a particular history discloses the “essence”? Why not assume that a particular history is a departure from its origins, rather than a logical progression from it?

He also objects because of the way this narrative is complicit with the secular. It indicates that “progress” lies in the direction of privatization of religion, individualism, anti-ritualism, and this helps to protect the secular sphere from intrusions of religion, from a substantive overarching purpose and goal. The progressive societies are those that are like the West. Weber, according to Milbank, is particularly opposed to all efforts to “orientalize” the public sphere, that is, he resists the “capture” of the public sphere by some substantive view of justice or good. Socialism is especially dangerous to the West because it would introduce substantive values into public life that the West has eschewed. Thus, the sociological narrative of history makes the secular the pinnacle of human progress and thus underwrites its superiority. Sociology has tended to privilege the Western liberalism as the standard by which every other social order is judged.

The liberal protestant metanarrative makes for some ironic twists of interpretation. Weber, as I’ve said, assumes that religion is in essence a private affair: but to suggest that this is the essence of religion is to assume that the modern West has revealed the essence of religion. Similarly, Weber makes a sharp distinction between the private realm of values and the public realm of instrumental rationality (Milbank traces this to Kantian sources). Sociology is mainly about the sphere of instrumental rationality, and other values only appear in Weber’s sociology as deviations from this norm. Again, this whole method of analysis assumes that the secular is permanent, while in fact it is contingent. The separation of value and instrumental rationality is required by Weber’s philosophical assumptions, which also lie in the background of the liberal metanarrative that sees religious and moral history culminating with Kant. Thus, Weber’s whole method is circular: He treats instrumental secular reason as the permanent reality of the public sphere but he only knows this because he has assumed the narrative that treats the secular as the permanent underlying truth of Christianity.

Weberian sociology thus assumes that the modern secular sphere is a permanent factor in human society, only waiting to be unveiled in more “primitive” and “regressive” social orders. He assumes a irreligious public sphere, ruled by egotistical pursuit of self-interest and by considerations of sheer power, and alongside this, occasionally impinging prophetically into the secular sphere, a sphere of value. What is ruled out, made theoretically and methodologically impossible, is a Christian vision. What is squeezed out, Milbank argues, is Christian charity as a public realm.

We might say that Weberian sociology is fundamentally a denial of the possibility of the church, a public that does not operate in terms of bureaucratic rationality, a public sphere of charity and forgiveness.

Theology

Previous Post

February 5, 2010

Once There Was No Secular

Next Post

February 5, 2010 Antique and Postmodern Violence

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1-2 Samuel 1968 Abelard Abortion Abraham Acedia AD 70 Adam Smith Addiction Advent Advertising Aeneid Aesthetics Africa African Christianity African Church African religion Age Aging Agriculture Airline industry Alabama Alasdair MacIntyre Albania Alcohol Allegory Alms Alternative Medicine Ambrose America American Christianity American culture American economy American Evangelicals American Foreign Policy American history American Literature American Military American Politics American Religion American Revolution Anagogy Analytic Philosophy Anamnesis Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient history Ancient Near East Ancient Religion Angels Anglican Church Anglicanism Animism Anointing of the Sick Anselm Anthropology Anthropomorphism anti-Catholicism Antiquities Antonio Lopez apocalypse Apocalyptic Apocalyptic language Apostles Creed Aquinas Archeology Architecture Arianism Aristotle Ark of the Covenant Art Art History Ascension Aseity Assurance Athanasius Atheism Athens atonement Attention Attributes Augustine Austin Farrer Authority autonomy Avant-garde Awe Bach Ballooning Balzac Banking Bankruptcy Baptism Baptists Baseball Basketball Bavinck Beatitudes Beauty Behavioral Economics Being Benedict XVI Benjamin Benjamin Franklin Beowulf Berkeley Bernie Sanders Bertrand Russell Bestiary Bible Bible - criticism Bible - NT Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians Bible - NT - 1 John Bible - NT - 1 Peter Bible - NT - 2 Corinthians Bible - NT - 2 Peter Bible - NT - Acts Bible - NT - Colossians Bible - NT - Ephesians Bible - NT - Galatians Bible - NT - Gospels Bible - NT - Hebrews Bible - NT - James Bible - NT - John Bible - NT - Jude Bible - NT - Luke Bible - NT - Mark Bible - NT - Matthew Bible - NT - Paul Bible - NT - Philippians Bible - NT - Revelation Bible - NT - Romans Bible - NT - Thessalonians Bible - NT - Timothy Bible - OT Bible - OT - Amos Bible - OT - Chronicles Bible - OT - Daniel Bible - OT - Deuteronomy Bible - OT - Ecclesiastes Bible - OT - Esther Bible - OT - Exodus Bible - OT - Ezekiel Bible - OT - Ezra-Nehemiah Bible - OT - Genesis Bible - OT - Habakkuk Bible - OT - Hosea Bible - OT - Isaiah Bible - OT - Jeremiah Bible - OT - Job Bible - OT - Joel Bible - OT - Jonah Bible - OT - Joshua Bible - OT - Judges Bible - OT - Kings Bible - OT - Lamentations Bible - OT - Leviticus Bible - OT - Malachi BIble - OT - Micah Bible - OT - Nehemiah Bible - OT - Numbers Bible - OT - Pentateuch Bible - OT - Proverbs Bible - OT - Psalms Bible - OT - Ruth Bible - OT - Samuel Bible - OT - Song of Songs Bible - OT - Torah Bible - OT - Zechariah Bible - OT - Zephaniah Biblical Law Biblicism Billy Graham biography Biology Biololgy Biotechnology Blasphemy Blindness Blog news Blogging Blogroll Bloomsbury Group Bob Dylan Body Body symbolism Boethius Boko Haram Bonhoeffer Book of Common Prayer Books Botany Boundary Brexit Britain British History British Politics Bruce Springsteen Buddhism Bureaucracy Burial Business C. S. Lewis C. S. Peirce Calendars Caliphate Calvin calvinism Camille Paglia Canon Capitalism Cappadocians Carl Schmitt Catholic Social Teaching Catholicism Catholicity Causation cemeteries Cervantes Charism Charismata Charity Charles Dickens Charles Hodge Charles Simeon Charles Taylor Charles Williams Chaucer Chermistry Chess Chesterton Chiasm children China Chinese Exclusion Act Chivalry Chopin Chretien de Troyes Christendom Christian Democracy Christian reconstruction Christianity in Britain Christianization Christmas Christology Chronology Church church and state Church architecture Church Calendar Church history Church of England Church Year Cicero Circumcision Cities City of God Civil Religion Civil Society Civil War Civility Classical Theism Classics Climate Change Clothing Coleridge Colloquy of Marburg Colonialism Color Comedy Comenius Commodity Communio Communism Community Comparative religions Computer Science Confederacy Confessionalization Conflict Congregations consciousness Consecration Conservatism Constantine Constitution consumerism Contra Faustum Conversion Coriolanus Cormac McCarthy Cosmology Cosmopolitanism Council of Trent Counter-culture Counter-insurgency Courage Courtly love Covenants Crafts Craftsmanship Cranach Creation Creativity Creator-creature Credit Crime Crime and Punishment Crisis Critical scholarship Criticism Cross Cubism Cultural theory Culture Culture War Dance Daniel Dennett Dante Darwin Dave Eggers David David Foster Wallace David Hume David Jones Deadly sins Death Debt Dechristianization Decolonization Deconstruction Defoe Deja vu Democracy Denis de Rougemont Denominationalism Derrida Descartes Developmental psychology Devils Diocletian Discipleship Disenchantment Disgust Diversion Diversity Divine energies Divine Impassibility Divine Simplicity Divine Warrior Doctrine dogma Dominion Donald Trump Dostoevsky Douglas Campbell Douglas Farrow Dreams Dualism Durkheim Dystopia E.M. Forster Early Christianity Early Modern Europe Easter Eastern Europe Eastern Orthodoxy Ecclesiology Ecclesiology Economics Economy Ecumenism Eden Edgar Allan Poe Edmund Spenser Education Egypt Election Elites Emergence Emma Emotion Empire England English History English Reformation Enlightenment Entertainment Entrepreneur environmentalism Envy Epic Epiphany Episcopals Epistemology Epistles Equality Erasmus Ernst Kantorowicz Eros Eschatology Eternity Ethics Eucharist Europe Evangelicalism Evangelicals and Catholics Together Events Evil Evolution Exile Face Fairie Queene Fairy Tales Faith family Family and Marriage Fantasy Farming Fashion Fasting Fatherhood Fear Femininity Feminism Fertility Fetishization Feud Feudalism Feuerbach Fiction Figs Film Finance Finland Fire Flag Flags Flannery O'Connor Flood myths Folly Food football Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy Foreknowledge Forgiveness Foucault Fracking France Francois Mauriac Franz Rosenzweig free will Freedom Freedom of God French Revolution Freud Funerals Future G. K. Chesterton Gambling Gaming Gay Marriage Gender gender identity Genealogy Geography George Berkeley George Eliot George Herbert; Poetry George Romanes Gerald Manley Hopkins Germany Gethsemane Gift Gifts Giorgio Agamben Global Christianity Global economics Globalism Globalization Glorious Revolution Gnosticism God's sovereignty Gods Goethe Golf Good Friday Gospel Gospels Gothic Gothic architecture Grace Grammar Gramsci Gratitude Greek Literature Greek Philosophy Greek Religion Greek Science Gregory of Nyssa Guillermo del Toro H. Richard Niebuhr Haiku hair Hamann Hamlet Handicap Handles Hands Hans Urs von Balthasar Happiness Harold Bloom Harper Lee Harvest healing Heaven Heavenly treasure Heavenly treasure Hebrew Bible Hebrew language Hegel Heidegger Hell Hellenism; Judaism; Revelation Henri de Lubac heresy Herman Dooyeweerd Hermeneutics Herod Heroic Heroism Hesiod Hidegard of Bingen Hierarchy Hieronymus Bosch Historicism Historiography History History - Early Modern History - Middle Ages Hoaxes Hobbes Holiness Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Home Homeless Homer Homosexuality Honor hope Horror Hospitality Housing Hugh of St. Victor Human Rights Humanism Humor hylomorphism Hymns Hypocrisy. Iago Iconoclasm Identity Ideology Idleness Idolatry Iliad Images Imagination Immigrant churches Immigrant Religion Immigration Imperialism Improvization Imputation Incarnation Incest India Individualism Indonesia Inequality Inerrancy Infant Baptism Infant mortality Infanticide Ingratitude Innovation Inspiration Institutions Insult Intellectual History Intellectuals Intelligent Design International Politics Internet Intimacy IQ Iran Iran-Iraq War Iraq Ireland Irony Islam Islamic State Islamism Ismail Kadare Israel Ivan Illich J. Gresham Machen J.N. Figgis Jacob Jacques Lacan James Bond James Jordan James Joyce James KA Smith James Wood Jane Austen Jane Jacobs Jealousy Jed Perl Jeff Koons Jeroboam Jesus Jewish War 66-70 AD Jihad Johann Georg Hamann Johannine Epistles John Ashbery John Behr John Bunyan John Calvin John Donne John Frame John Howard Yoder John Knox John Milbank John Milton John Owen John Rawls John Ruskin John Stuart Mill John the Baptist John Webster John Wesley John Williamson Nevin Jonathan Edwards Jorge Luis Borges Joseph Conrad Joseph Ratzinger Journalism Joy Judaism Judaize Judgment Judith Butler Jurgen Moltmann Justice Justification Kalevala Kant Karl Barth Karl Marx Karl Polanyi Karl Rahner Kazakhstan Kazuo Ishiguro Kenneth Lonergan Kierkegaard King Lear Kingdom of God Kitsch Knighthood Knowledge Korea Labor movement Lactantius Lamech Lament Landscape Language Latin America Laughter Law Law and Punishment Leftism Lent Les Murray Levi-Strauss Levites Leviticus Liber Mundi Liberal arts Liberal Theology Liberalism Light Lighthouse Linguistics LIstening Literacy Literary structure Literature Liturgics Liturgy Locke Logic Love Luther Lutheran Lutheranism Lying Lytton Strachey Macbeth Machiavelli Machines Madness Mainline Manhattan Manicheanism Manners Manufacturing Manuscripts Mao Zedong Maps Marcion Marilynne Robinson Marketing Marriage Martha Nussbaum Martin Bucer Martin Chemnitz Martyrdom Marx Marxism Mary Mary Douglas masculinity Mass Materialism Mathematics Maundy Thursday Max Weber Media Mediation Medication Medicine Medieval Church Medieval exegesis Medieval Literature Medieval theology Medieval Thought Medievalism Memory Merchant of Venice Mesopotamian Religion Messianic Metaphor Metaphysics Methodist Mexican-American War Michel de Montaigne Michel Faber Middle Ages Middle East Midwifery Mikhail Bulgakov Military Millennium Mind Miracles Miscellaneous Mission missionaries Mixed constitution Modern self modernism Modernity monasticism Monotheism Monroe Doctrine Monsters Montaigne's Essays Moral philosophy Mormonism Moses Mother Teresa Motherhood Motive Mount of Olives Movies Multiculturalism Murder Music Musicals Mutability Mutability Mystery Mysticism myth N. T. Wright Narrative Nation-State Nationalism Natural Law Natural-Supernatural Nature Nature and culture Nature and Grace Nazi Nazirite Necrophilia Nero Nestorianism Neuroscience Nevin Lectures New Atheism New Testament New York City Newbigin News NGOs Nibelungenlied Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Lyra Nietzsche Nigeria Nihilism Nobel Prize Nobility Nominalism Norbert Elias Norman MacCaig nostalgia Novels Numerology Obama Objectivity and subjectivity Occasionalism Odysseus Oil Old Testament Oliver O'Donovan Ontology Origen original sin Orthodoxy Othello Owen Barfield Pacifism Pactum salutis Paedocommunion Paganism Pain Painting Paleoconservatism Palm Sunday Pannenberg Parenting Pascal Passions Passivity Pastoral Care Pastoral theology Patrick Modiano Patristics Patronage Paul Peace of God Peace of Westphalia Penal substitution Pentecost Pentecostalism Perichoresis Pericles Persecution Person Peter Peter Enns Petrarch Philip K. Dick Philip Melanchthon Philosophy Philosophy of Action Philosophy of History Philosophy of language Philosophy of science Phone booth Photography Physics Pictures Pierre Bourdieu Place Planned Parenthood Plants plato Play Plot Plotinus Pluralism Pneumatology Poetics poetry Poetry & Stories Poland police Political Philosophy Political theology Political Theory Politics Pop Culture Pope Francis Popular Culture Populism Pornography Porphyry Post-Colonial Theory Post-Structuralism Postmodernism Postmodernity Potential Poverty Power Practice Pragmatism Prayer Preaching Predestination Prediction Prehistory Premillennialism Presbyterian Priesthood Prince Charles Prison Reform privacy Private Prodigal Son Progress Progressivism Property Prophecy Prophet Propitiation Prosperity gospel Prostitution Protectionism Protestantism Providence Prudentius psalms Pseudo-Dionysus Psychological Warfare Psychology Public intellectual Public Life Public Philosophy Public Theology Publishing Punk Rock Pure nature Puritanism Purity Pushkin Putin Pythagoreanism R.J. Rushdoony Race Racism Radical Orthodoxy Rape Rationality Reactionary reading Realism Reason Red State Blue State Reformation Reformational Catholicism Reformational Philosophy Reformed theology refugees reinhold niebuhr Relationality Relativism Relics Religion Religion and science Religions Religious Freedom Religious Liberty Religious Right Renaissance Rene Girard Republican Party Resurrection Resurrection. Revelation Revelations Revenge Revivalism Revolution rhetoric Richard Flannagan Richard II Richard III Richard Wagner Richard Wilbur Righteousness Ritual Robert Frost Robert Herrick Robert Jenson Robert Mugabe Robert Spaemann Robinson Crusoe Rock n' Roll Rod Dreher Rodin Roman Catholicism Roman Empire Roman Religion Romance Romanticism Rome Rootedness Rosenstock-Huessy Rousseau Rowan Williams Rural America Russia Russian literature Russian Orthodoxy Rusty Reno Rwanda S. Y. Agnon Sabbath Sacrament Sacramental theology Sacraments Sacred Sacred Space Sacrifice saints Salt Sam Harris Same-sex marriage Sanctuary Satan Satire Saudi Arabia Scapegoat Scarcity Schism Schleiermacher Scholarship Science Science and Theology Science Fiction Scopes trial Scotland Scott Adams Scott Cairns Scottish Reformation Scotus Scripture and tradition sculpture Sea Second temple Secularism Secularization Self-Help Self-trust Semiotics Semper reformanda separation of church and state Sermon on the Mount Sex Sex Trafficking Sexual abuse Sexual Politics Sexual Revolution Sexuality Shakespeare Shame Culture Shema Sherlock Shopping Silence Simone Weil Simplicity Simpsons Sin Sincerity Sixties Skepticism Slavery Slavoj Zizek Sleep Sloth Social capital Social change Social Imaginary Social Science Socialism Socialization Sociology Sociology of Knowledge Sociology of Religion Sola scriptura Sonnets Sophocles Soteriology Soviet Union Space Spain Speculation Spinoza Spirit Sport Sports Star Trek State State-formation Stephen Masty Steven Bannon Strangers Structuralism structure Subject-object Substitution Suburbs Suffering Suicide Super-Rich Superheroes Supersessionism Supplication Supreme Court Surveillance Symbol Synagogue Taberancle Tabernacle Tax Taxes Tears Technology Teens Teleology Television Temple Ten Commandments Terence Terrence Malick Terrorism Thanksgiving The South The West Theodore Roosevelt Theogony Theological Education Theological Language Theology Theology - Anthropology Theology - Christology Theology - Covenant Theology - Creation Theology - Ecclesiology Theology - Eschatology Theology - Liturgical Theology - Pneumatology Theology - Soteriology Theology - Trinity Theology proper Theopolis Theopolis Institute Theosis Theresa May Thomas A. Clark Thomas Aquinas Thomas Carlyle Thomas Mann Threshing Thucydides Time Tocqueville Tolerance Toleration Tolstoy Tom Wolfe Tools Torah Torture Toscanini Totalitarianism Trade Tradition Tragedy Transhumanism Translation Transubstantiation Travel Trees Trinitarianism Trinity Trinity House Tristan Troilus and Creysede Trump Trump Truth Turkey Twelfth Night Two Kingdoms Typology Ukraine Ulysses Uncanny Uncategorized Uniform Union with Christ United States Unity University Usury Utilitarianism Utopia Value Vatican II Vengeance Vico Victorian Age Victorian Literature Vienna Violence Virgil Virgin Birth Virginia Woolf Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Solovyev Vladimir Solovyov W.H. Auden Walls Walt Disney Walt Whitman Walter Benjamin Walter Lippmann War Wars of Religion Washington DC Wealth Weddings Will William Carlos Williams William Gilpin William Golding Wine Wisdom wonder Word of God Wordsworth Work Works World Council of Churches World History World War I World War II Worldview Worship Wrath Writing Youth Youth Ministry Yuja Wang Yves Congar Zimbabwe Zwingli Zygmunt Bauman

Select a Month January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did God create on the second day?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Fish Sky Sun Trees