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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Coronavirus

Does Corona Compassion Kill?

The corona virus hit Western society like a Biblical plague — almost. Biblical plagues were actually much more devastating. Still, as Peter Leithart describes the present situation, it is a judgment from God, because the disease itself together with our political solutions brought about a social situation that fits Deuteronomy’s…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 26, 2020
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Theology

Is Theology Useless?

“The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?” - Richard Dawkins One cannot be a Christian college president or seminary trustee (your essayist is both) without wondering if Richard Dawkins’s notorious take-down of theology…

by Alexander WhitakerMay 19, 2020
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How to Worship

How Should Churches Respond to One Another?

Nearly every church that I am aware of has adopted differing practices since the recent virus scare began. Some churches continued to meet during the state lock downs, and other churches left their building empty, meeting online through various video conference technologies. Some churches have gone back to life as…

by Jonah BarnesMay 12, 2020
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Fear

Fear

Fear is an inseparable companion of human life. We are afraid of illness and death, poverty and cataclysms, rejection and betrayal, failure and shame. We are afraid of the unknown, so in a sense we are afraid of the future and life itself. Unless we live in the illusory belief…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 5, 2020
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Heresy

The Blessing of “Heresies”

In the title above, I put the word “heresies” in quotation marks because I would prefer that the word “heresy” be confined to erroneous beliefs about the Trinity and the Person of Christ, rather than be used broadly to describe any view that might be considered an error. 1 At…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 30, 2020
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Fear

On Coping (or not) with a Crisis

I’ve been trying to work out why I’m feeling existentially disconnected from CoV-19-related fears. I’m taking it seriously, but it’s not registering in any deeply personal way. Partly it’s that my routines are largely undisrupted. But as I reflect on people’s reactions I think there’s more, because a lot of…

by Matthew MasonApril 28, 2020

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Redeeming “Us”

In a 1989 article on Paul’s use of Deuteronomy 21 in Galatians 3, Ardel Caneday argues that Paul’s use of pronouns in Galatians is not indiscriminate: “In Gal 3:10-4:7, Paul employs the first person when life under the law is in view and the second person when the gentile Galatians’…

September 25, 2014

Are Doers Cursed?

Paul cites Deuteronomy 27:26 in Galatians 3. The passage in Deuteronomy says, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all the things written in the book of the law to do them.” Paul applies this to “those who are of the works of the law” ( hosoi ex ergon…

September 25, 2014

In A Rush

“In 1849, some ninety thousand young men swarmed to the gold fields (two-thirds of them were American); in 1850, nearly as many more elbowed their way into the scrum, and the throngs kept coming all through the early 1850s. . . . In the four years from 1849 through 1852,…

September 25, 2014

The Faith of Jesus Christ

Ardel Caneday makes an illuminating contribution to Pauline studies in his contribution to The Faith of Jesus Christ . Caneday rightly insists that the contested phrase pistis Christou , “faith of Christ,” cannot be interpreted in isolation. Translators and exegetes who choose to take the phrase as a subjective genitive…

September 24, 2014

Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theories abound, on right and left. Some are loony or worse. But in their recent Modern Conspiracy , Emma Jane and Chris Fleming observe that “the act of conspiring . . . is not inherently noxious” (6). After all, “politics, business, and even family units would struggle to function…

September 24, 2014

Up, Up, and Away

Falling Upwards , a history of ballooning by Richard Holmes, deals with an enchanting subject, and Holmes writes the history enchantingly. The story is populated by daredevils. Like Sophie Blanchard, who put on ballooning shows for Napoleon and after Napoleon fell, until her balloon caught fire on July 6, 1819…

September 24, 2014

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