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Writing

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

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Revelation

Him Whom They Pierced

Revelation 1: 7 states the theme of Revelation. It is a self-standing verse, beginning and ending with “Amen” (the “Amen” at the end of verse 6 should be taken as the beginning of the statement in verse 7). A double Amen as a double witness, and it becomes a threefold…

by Peter LeithartFebruary 3, 2014
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Sexuality

Crushes as Spiritual Warfare?

For many young people with safe and easy lives, the most heartfelt prayers often concern relationships with the opposite sex. I used to be embarrassed by this, since I felt a little panty-waisted praying for “wisdom” about “that girl” while reading: Be merciful to me, O God, for man would…

by Christian LeithartJanuary 30, 2014
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Books

Slavery of Death - A Reponse

I’d like to start by thanking Peter for taking the time to read and review The Slavery of Death and for letting me share a few thoughts about some the questions and concerns he had about the book. Let me start with a confession. Interdisciplinary work is a scary thing…

by Richard BeckJanuary 27, 2014
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Rosenstock-Huessy

Alpha and Omega, Jews and Gentiles

The extension of rights to the Jews was one of the great achievements of the French Revolution, and in Out of Revolution: Autobiography of Western Man (219-29) Rosenstock-Huessy moves from a discussion of the resulting Jewish enthusiasm for liberalism to a digression dealing with the relation of Jews and Gentiles…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 22, 2014
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Books

Slavery of Death

In two recent books, The Slavery of Death (2014) and Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality (2011), Richard Beck, a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University, explores the connections of theology and psychology. Both books examine the overlap between biblical themes and psychological research. The Slavery of Death…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 20, 2014
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Isaiah

Light of the Nations

Epiphany is a season of light. The specific event celebrated during Epiphany is the visit of the magi to the Christ child, but the magi were always understood as the firstfruits of the nations. The magi were drawn to the Christ child by a light in the sky, a star…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 16, 2014

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Epicurean indifference revisited

Wes Callihan writes, in response to my brief quotation from Lucretius: “Possibly, however, Lucretius wouldn’t consider the indifferent watcher from the porch outside Pompeii a true Epicurean. Doesn’t the very next line go on to say something about how the pleasure is *not* in the other person’s suffering but in…

October 15, 2008
Philosophy

Direction revelation

Isaiah Berlin’s book on Hamann is lively engaging, but Berlin doesn’t get Hamann. For instance: “Hamann’s constantly repeated point is that revelation is direct contact between one spirit and another, God and ourselves.” Not. The opposite is the case: His constantly repeated point is that God speaks to the creature…

October 15, 2008

Lucretian wisdom

Book 2 of De rerum natura begins with “It is sweet on the great sea to watch from the shore other people drowning.” The words were found on a wall on a house in Pompeii. Perhaps someone sweetly watched from a perch opposite Vesuvius as the lava flow swallowed up…

October 14, 2008

Arian incoherence

Athanasius ties the Arians up in knots with an order-of-decrees argument. If the Son is created for the sake of creating us, then the Son exists for our need rather than we for His sake. That suggests a particular ordering of God’s will: “It is not that God, having the…

October 14, 2008

Speech-act Christology?

Athanasius says that “the words of human beings do not act.” Instead, “it is not by words but by hands that a human being works, for human hands have subsistence while words do not.” Hence, he is willing to adopt Irenaeus’s notion that the Son and Spirit are the two…

October 14, 2008

Creator-creature

Athanasius ( Orations Against the Arians ) writes that “God is not like us.” This is in the context of explaining how the eternal Word differs from the ephemeral words of human beings, and how the divine Word actually does what it says: “the Word of God is not, as…

October 14, 2008

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