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Writing

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

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Masculinity

Ringing the Brothel Door

Bruce Marshall once wrote that every young man who rings the bell at a brothel is unconsciously looking for God. While it is not necessarily true that the inward desire of every man is ultimately a thirst for righteousness, it is true that every sin is the disordering of a…

by Garrett SoucyOctober 31, 2023
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Ruth

Work and Gratitude in Ruth

In a previous essay , I argued that the story which begins with Lot and culminates in Ruth’s great-grandson David follows God’s five-fold pattern of creative work as laid out by Jim Jordan: taking something in hand (in this case, the Abrahamic family), restructuring it, distributing the product of labor,…

by Josh JensenOctober 27, 2023
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Books

Men, Marriage, and the Feminine Imperative: A Review of "Men and Marriage"

Gilder, George. Men and Marriage. Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2023. 1 By 1973, the hightide of second-wave feminism had flooded the beaches of American culture. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique eroded the shores of traditional female roles by naming and stirring up further domestic discontentment. Kate Millet wrote her dissertation-turned-book,…

by Bill SmithOctober 17, 2023
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Galatians

Get Behind Me, Eliphaz!

The Book of Job is a very tortuous book. The arguments of Job and his friends are shot through with truth and error hopelessly mixed together. Every line of contentious poetry stands locked in deadly battle with every other line. As maddening as this can be for a reader who…

by Jonathan WhiteOctober 10, 2023
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Apostle Paul

Before His Conversion, Paul Knew Jesus

More than once in the last 50 years it has occurred to me that Paul might have known Jesus before He appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, but I had never taken up the notion in earnest until recently when I ran into a book by Stanley Porter titled…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 4, 2023
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Acts

Did Peter Found the Church in Rome?

The question in the title is genuine, not polemic. I could be perfectly happy to follow an ancient — and what is regarded as a well-attested — tradition. But I do not feel compelled to follow it simply because it is tradition. I would like to have arguments that Peter…

by Ralph Allan SmithSeptember 26, 2023

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Eucharist Lecture #2

THE TRIPLE BODY OF CHRIST As Henri de Lubac pointed out, the history of Eucharistic theology and practice is largely a history of the changing relations among the threefold body of Christ. The threefold body is: the natural physical body of Jesus; the Eucharistic bread which is the body of…

October 27, 2004

Eucharist Lecture #1

The notes that follow in this and the following two posts are for lectures to be delivered in Brockton, Massachusetts this weekend. HE CAME EATING AND DRINKING If we want to discuss the Lord?s Supper adequately, we cannot disconnect it from concerns of ecclesiology and eschatology. In the Old Testament,…

October 27, 2004
Literature

The Cliches of David Lodge

James Wood is never more entertaining than when he intensely dislikes a book, and he intensely dislikes David Lodge’s widely reviewed, Author, Author , a fictionalized biography of Henry James. After savaging the opening paragraph of Lodge’s novel, he goes on to list some of Lodge’s cliches: “We encounter Henry…

October 26, 2004
Philosophy

Narrative Selves?

Galen Strawson, philosophy editor of TLS , challenges the current widespread idea that human lives either are or should be narrative. He distinguishes between the “Psychological Narrative” thesis, which claims that “ordinary human beings experience their lives” in a narrative fashion, and the “Ethical Narrativity Thesis,” which claims that we…

October 26, 2004

Justification and “Life Situation”

Can God change a person?s ?legal standing?Ewithout changing his ?life situation?E It would seem not: 1) The life condition of someone who is not justified is a situation of being ?under the curse?Eor ?under the reign of Death and Sin.?E This situation is punishment from God for sin, Adam?s and…

October 26, 2004

Justification and “Life Situation”

Can God change a person?s ?legal standing?Ewithout changing his ?life situation?E It would seem not: 1) The life condition of someone who is not justified is a situation of being ?under the curse?Eor ?under the reign of Death and Sin.?E This situation is punishment from God for sin, Adam?s and…

October 26, 2004

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