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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

The Literary Structure of the Whole Bible

In this essay we will think about how the whole Bible is structured as one Word of God. To begin with, there is only one Bible, not two. While we divide the Bible into Old and New Testaments, that division has no more meaning than divisions into chapters and verse,…

by James B. JordanMay 16, 2019
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Catholicity

Catholicity and Integrity

How should one badly bruised and inadequate church relate to another? (I am not addressing the blessed possessors of absolutely perfect churches, naturally.) I believe there are three things to bear in mind. First, we must be open to the values in other Christian traditions - even Roman Catholic and…

by James B. JordanMay 14, 2019
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Chiasm

Fertile Meaning

The third and sixth day have a second creative act. Note the chiastic arrangement of the material in these special acts and the parallelism between them, see the figure below. The author arranges the description of each day as a chiasm. Each line in the chiasm is mated with a…

by Scott FairbanksMay 9, 2019
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Biblical Theology

Nakedness and Clothing

Now the two of them were naked, the man and his woman, and they did not sense shame (Genesis 2:25) The nakedness of Adam and Eve requires several comments. First of all, against those who think that nakedness is what God intended for humanity as a permanent estate, we have…

by James B. JordanMay 7, 2019
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Epistemology

Restoring the “Other” in Mother

I’ve been reflecting on the meaning of integration, and our longing for integration in a fragmented world. I’ve been connecting my own covenant epistemology further with the thought of scientist-philosopher Michael Polanyi, artist Makoto Fujimura, and Classical Christian metaphysician D.C. Schindler. In my last post , and now in this…

by Esther Lightcap MeekApril 30, 2019
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Hermeneutics

Go Tell that Vixen!

Luke 13:31-33 is one of the strangest passages in the Gospel of Luke. It begins with a time note that sounds emphatic “At that very hour.” Then, we are told of Pharisees bringing a message that Herod wants to kill Jesus! In His answer, Jesus speaks of a three day…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 23, 2019

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American Pluralism

Kevin M. Schultz's contribution to Faith in the New Millennium is “The Blessings of American Pluralism, and Those Who Rail Against It.” The essay is partly a study of the history of Americans' reconciliation with American pluralism. He starts with Sonya Sotomayor's appoint to the Supreme Court. A Catholic, she…

November 20, 2015

Divine Liturgist

God speaks and light appear. He separates light and darkness, assigns names to each, and judges the whole to be good. Next day, He’s at it again, speaking, separating, assessing, judging. And so it goes throughout the days of creation: With an insistent, incantatory rhythm, God speaks, sees, names, judges.…

November 20, 2015

Incarnation in Exile

Ezekiel’s initial vision is of the Lord’s chariot-throne, coming with whirling wheels and a sound like thunder, to visit him at the River Chebar. Though the prophet is in exile, the glory of the God of the temple is with him. Robert Jenson ( Ezekiel ) highlights the “incarnational” force…

November 19, 2015

Baptized Education

The Christian school has to function as a fruit of the Christian church. That does not mean it has to be administratively connected to a church. But to be Christian it has to take the church’s ministry as its given starting point. Specifically, I have in mind the sacrament, rite,…

November 19, 2015

Rites of the Stadium

M odern sports are not simple competition between the two teams. If they were only about physical competition, games would be shorter, less glitzy, less energetic. Sports are ritualized events, liturgies. The crowd’s behavior is deliberately intensified with ritual elements – with mascots who emblem the team, with fight songs…

November 19, 2015

Amnesiac Modernity

A wonderful quotation from Paul Connerton's How Societies Remember , recently noted by Rod Dreher: “Under the conditions of modernity the celebration of recurrence can never be anything more than a compensatory strategy, because the principle of modernity itself denies the idea of life as a structure of celebrated recurrence.…

November 18, 2015

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