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Writing

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

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Christendom

The Fundamentals of the Faith

Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…

by Jackson WatersNovember 26, 2025
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Matthew

Testimonium Negativum: Josephus, Matthew’s Gospel, and New Evidence for the Coming Christ

1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…

by Jonathan SedlakNovember 18, 2025
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Genesis

Trauma and Glory: Overcoming Suffering with Joseph

Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…

by Lindsey TollefsonNovember 11, 2025
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Uncategorized

Lips like a Thread of Crimson: Midrash on a Theme from the Song of Solomon

The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…

by Mark BriansNovember 4, 2025
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Culture

The Rule of the Incarnate

This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…

by Ronald DodsonOctober 31, 2025
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Deuteronomy

A Father’s Liturgical Logic: The Pastoral Aim of the Davidic Revolution

In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 29, 2025
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Science

Peppered Moth

Phillip Johnson reports on the scandal concerning the peppered moth in the December 2003 issue of Touchstone . It’s a pretty grim story, recently told by Judith Hooper in Of Moths and Men . What Johnson calls the “juiciest” scandal “is that the moths, which are nocturnal, do not rest…

December 4, 2003

Nature and Culture

I believe that some time ago I made the connection between Derrida’s “supplement at the origin,” tragedy, and conceptions of the relation of nature and culture. In some systems of thought, culture is a “supplement” to nature and participates in all the problems that Derrida brings out with supplementarity. That…

December 3, 2003
Literature

Arthur Miller on Tragedy

Exum quotes Arthur Miller on tragedy, and Miller I think gets things quite right: “It matters not at all whether a hero falls from a great height or a small one, whether he is highly conscious or only dimly aware of what is happening, whether his pride brings the fall…

December 3, 2003
Biblical Studies

Tragedy and Biblical Narrative

Cheryl Exum’s Tragedy and Biblical Narrative (Cambridge, 1992) argues that there is a “tragic” dimension to the Bible, but in offering her initial explorations she actually seems to be supporting something like the opposite conclusion. 1) She stresses the importance of struggle against fate/gods/God as a key element of tragedy:…

December 3, 2003

Hafeman on Future and Present Justification

As I’ve considered Hafeman’s take on future and present justification (summarized in an earlier post), I’ve come to have some important reservations. First, as I noted at the time, Hafeman’s construction leaves me uncertain about the role of union with Christ. This problem is fixable, I think: Our union with…

December 3, 2003
Science

How Children Learn

The November 15 Science News has a brief review of a multi-author book entitled Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less . The review states that the authors “encourage parents to allow children to learn problem solving…

December 2, 2003

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