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Writing

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

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Romans

Notes on Scary Stuff in Romans 9

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on…

by Mark HorneFebruary 5, 2015
lunch-counter
American Politics

Covenants of Exclusion

A hundred years ago, William Warley signed a contract to buy a house in Louisville, Kentucky from Charles Buchanan, a white man. Before closing the sale, Warley, who was black, learned that the lot was subject to a city ordinance barring blacks from occupying the premises if most of the…

by Brendan O'DonnellFebruary 3, 2015
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Literature

The Bard and the Book

I concluded the first essay on this topic by saying that I would introduce three books about Shakespeare and the Bible, but I decided to introduce four instead. The three books become four are: Naseeb Shaheen, Biblical References in Shakespeare’s Plays (London: Associated University Presses, 1999) ; Hannibal Hamlin, The…

by Ralph Allan SmithJanuary 29, 2015
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Augustine

Augustine on Pagan Virtue

My children attend a classical Christian school, situated in the independent “free church” evangelical tradition. Over the past few years they have been growing in their acquaintance with the world of Homer, Plato, Virgil, and Livy. They enjoy it, and I envy it. The school is a great school. My…

by Gerald HiestandJanuary 27, 2015
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Atonement

The Prodigal and the Cross

The Prodigal Son parable (Luke 15) has been a favorite of liberal theologians for a couple of centuries. It seems to be a parable designed for liberal sensibilities: An indulgent, accepting Father; forgiveness extended without a cross; a surly older brother who might represent the "conservative" face of religion who…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 22, 2015
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Ascension

Underground Man, Ascended Man

“I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 20, 2015

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Sermon outline

INTRODUCTION Hope is a spring of human action. We do what we do because we hope to accomplish something by our actions, and when we are truly hopeless we do nothing at all. Scripture teaches us that we raise our children in hope, as well as in faith and love.…

November 20, 2007
Politics

Plato’s anti-democracy

Reviewing Malcolm Schofield’s Plato: Political Philosophy in the TLS, Jonathan Lear offers this superb precis of Plato’s politics: “For Plato, one cannot understand politics unless one grasps the nature and structure of human desire. Political scientists must be students of the human soul: for one cannot understand the problem of…

November 20, 2007
Politics

Plato’s anti-democracy

Reviewing Malcolm Schofield’s Plato: Political Philosophy in the TLS, Jonathan Lear offers this superb precis of Plato’s politics: “For Plato, one cannot understand politics unless one grasps the nature and structure of human desire. Political scientists must be students of the human soul: for one cannot understand the problem of…

November 20, 2007
History

Romantic form

Formalism seems a classical obsession, but Angela Leighton argues in her recent On Form that the key moment came with romanticism. Schiller said that in a beautiful poem “the content should do nothing, the form everything . . . . the real artistic secret of the master consists in his…

November 20, 2007
History

God and Gold

Walter Russell Mead’s recent God and Gold explores the uncanny success of Anglo-American power since the seventeenth century, what Mead calls “the biggest geopolitical story of modern times: the birth, rise, triumph, defence, and continuing grown of Anglo-American power despite continuing and always renewed opposition and conflict.” Since the late…

November 20, 2007
Philosophy

Immanentism and dualism

In the same article, Milbank argues that “dualism and hierarchy are . . . the secret heart of all immanentisms.” The argument is: In 18th and 19th century design arguments, God is “half-immanent” and interacts “on the same plane with what he influences.” This is a dualism between “the creative…

November 20, 2007

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