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

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Astral imagery

The Lady and Her Jewels: An Epiphany Meditation

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery (Revelation 12:1-2). Then Joshua spoke…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 6, 2015
extreme-unction
Anointing

Fattening Our Suffering

In his post asking Ought we Anoint the Dying? Peter Leithart makes an excellent and important point about our suffering as members of Christ. However, he only parenthetically mentions that the verb in question in James 5 is not chrio but aleipho . By assuming that these words are interchangeable,…

by Robert MaddoxDecember 30, 2014
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James

Death as Frenemy

We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death as well?…

by Rich LuskDecember 23, 2014
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Literature

Was Shakespeare A Christian?

How would one go about answering the question posed by my title? That depends on what the question means. Obviously, different definitions of the question would require different approaches to an answer. Right off hand, I can think of at least three possible — though not necessarily mutually exclusive —…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 23, 2014
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American Culture

Phobophobia

In recent weeks and months, we have seen events that are not the event. The drama around these events is not the events themselves, but the anxiety about the events, and then even the anxiety about the anxiety about the events. That is the real event. The events in Ferguson,…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 22, 2014
anointing-david
Anointing

Ought We Anoint the Dying?

Anointing the sick, including the dying, is one of the traditional seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Reformers denied that the rite qualified as a sacrament. Formally, this was because anointing did not have a direct authorization from Jesus; more theologically, it was not one of the marks that…

by Peter LeithartDecember 18, 2014

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Philosophy

Beliefs & Desires

A trio of authors argue in the January 2004 issue of American Philosophical Quarterly that conscious desires are impossible. They begin with a distinction between beliefs and desires, showing that the difference has to do with the “direction of fit” with the external world. Beliefs (and perceptions) arise from the…

February 27, 2004
American Religion

American Jesus

In American Jesus , Stephen Prothero traces a three-stage process that produced a uniquely American Jesus. First, Jesus was detached, through the awakenings of the nineteenth century, from the creedal and confessional Calvinism of Puritan America; then, scholars disentangled Jesus from the biblical witness, basing their faith supposedly on Jesus…

February 26, 2004
Literature

Eugene Vinaver on Romance Literature

From Eugene Vinaver, on the development of Romance literature in the high middle ages: In the third quarter of the twelfth century, some ten or fifteen years after the disaster of the Second Crusade, a remarkable event occurred on the European literary scene . . . . A series of…

February 25, 2004
History

Those Crazy Medievals

In the late twelfth century, the English writer Nigel Wireker produced the Speculum Stultorum , the ?Mirror of Dunces.?EIn this story, an ass, Brunellus, dissatisfied with his short tail, leaves home to visit the famous physician Galen to get a prescription for a longer tail. Galen sends him to Salerno,…

February 25, 2004

Chiasm in Luke 21:25-26

There’s a neat little chiasm in Luke 21:25-26: A. Signs in sun, moon stars B. on earth dismay among nations C. in perplexity at roaring of the sea and waves B. men fainting with fear and expectations of things coming upon the oikoumene A. powers of heavens shaken. A couple…

February 25, 2004

Eucharistic Meditation, February 22

In this parable, Jesus tells the story of Israel using the image of the vineyard. As we saw, this was not an invention of Jesus, but goes back to Psalms and Prophets who used the vineyard as an image of Israel. In these verses Jesus says that the vineyard is…

February 23, 2004

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