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Writing

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

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Books

Dull New World

If utopia is a perfect place or at least the best possible social arrangement, it must be a very dull place where any change is a change for worse and not for better, where nothing can be new and good at the same time. There can be no conflict in…

by Bogumil JarmulakDecember 8, 2015
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Baptism

Sealed for Resurrection: Baptism and the Objectivity of the Body

Christians, even those who say much about ‘incarnational’ faith, can say surprisingly little about the way that God claims our bodies . Perhaps this is most striking in treatments of baptism, where the intensely bodily character of the rite would especially seem to invite comment. Even if the term ‘baptism’…

by Alastair RobertsDecember 3, 2015
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Abortion

Letters on Abortion, (Part 3)

Dear Pastor, I believe the locus of the difference between us is your statement here: "There are mothers who choose to risk their lives and even die to preserve the fetus, there are those who wouldn't. There are the circumstances of the individual, family, income, community, illness, risk factors, etc..…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 1, 2015
vitruvian-man
Body

Cultivating the Body

New Year’s resolutions for weight loss are practically on the liturgical calendar of America. Somewhere around the beginning of a new year, people resolve that they will get in better shape. Some are made to feel guilty by the obesity police in our country (whose standards are, many times, very…

by Bill SmithNovember 25, 2015
pro-choice-rally
Abortion

Letters on Abortion, (Part 2)

Click HERE for Part 1 After sending my letter to the local pastors, I received a long and thoughtful post from one of the local pastors, and it was sent not just to me, but to all of the pastors whom I e-mailed. Unfortunately, I do not feel I can…

by Richard BledsoeNovember 24, 2015
trinity-1-2
Narrative

God Is Not A Story

Narrative and story have been all the rage in theology for the last few decades. The attractions are obvious. Narrative theologians favor the active, unpredictable, vibrant God of Scripture to the impersonal first principle of philosophical theology. Narrative theologians reject the notion that theologians need to justify their work by…

by Peter LeithartNovember 19, 2015

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History

Tertullian and empire, again again

First I post a quotation, then I add a post raising questions about its genuineness. Now I find that it was genuine in the first place. Tertullian, On Idolatry , 19 asks “whether a believer may turn himself unto military service, and whether the military may be admitted unto the…

April 30, 2009
Politics

Polis against man

O’Donovan again: “By what right is the term ‘political’ claimed exclusively for the defense of social structures which refuse the deeper spiritual and cosmic aspirations of mankind? The price to be paid by classical republicanism is that of pitting political order against human fulfillment, of making the polis constitutionally hostile…

April 30, 2009
Politics

The Good of Power

“It is a Western conceit,” O’Donovan writes, “to imagine that all political problems arise from the abuse or over-concentration of power; and that is why we are so bad at understanding political difficulties which have arisen from a lack of power, or from its excessive diffusion.” He cites the example…

April 30, 2009

Blood and Soil, again

A helpful Christological response to my “blood and soil” post from Jack Kilcrease of Marquette University: “I’m currently working on an article about Gerhard Forde and the Radical Lutherans concept of discontinuity. They want between the law and gospel for there to be total discontinuity. Granted, this is to overcome…

April 30, 2009
History

Supernatural and hagiography

De Lubac traced the development of the terminology and concept of “supernatural” in the theologians, and Bartlett finds confirmation of de Lubac’s thesis by looking at hagiographic writings (collected in the 68 volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, published from 1643 to 1925!). He found no use of the word before…

April 29, 2009
Uncategorized

Land and sea

One of the virtues of Robert Bartlett’s The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (aside from a chapter on dogs and dogheads) is his discussion of the medieval puzzle concerning land and sea. By the four-elements theory, earth was the densest element, and thus should gravitate to the…

April 29, 2009

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