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

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Medicine

Fighting the Beast

Peter Leithart recently wrote on his blog about the verse from Revelation 13, "Who is able to wage war with the beast?" and I could hardly help but take special notice. These were exactly the words l had had echoing about in my own head recently. Of course the answer…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 4, 2014
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American Politics

Laughing Along with Jon Stewart

I confess to mixed feelings about Jon Stewart. There’s a great deal about his work that I don’t particularly like. I don’t like his profanity, the worst of which is mercifully bleeped out before it makes it onto the YouTube clips that are my main source of snippets. I certainly…

by Steve JefferyDecember 2, 2014
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Homosexuality

The Marriage Pledge: A View from Dixie

The Marriage Pledge , authored by Ephraim Radner and Christopher Seitz and unveiled by First Things editor R. R. Reno, argues that the time has come for Christian pastors to rend themselves away from civil marriage. The Pledge argues that the fact that many states are now allowing same sex…

by Rich LuskDecember 1, 2014
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Psalms

Psalm 28 Commentary

Psalm 28 has an overall rhetorical structure that looks like this: lines 1-16, prayer to Yahweh lines 17-20, talk about the wicked lines 21-27, talk about Yahweh (center of psalm) lines 28-29, talk about the anointed people lines 30-33, prayer to Yahweh As is so often the case, the enemies…

by James B. JordanNovember 26, 2014
tools
Culture

Culture

A river arises in Eden, flows through the sanctuary-garden, and waters the world downstream. A spring springs up from beneath the throne of God in the temple, rushes over the threshold, and then out to the land, toward the Sea of Salt, where it empties and turns brackish water sweet.…

by Peter LeithartNovember 25, 2014
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Sexuality

Sex Trafficking and the Devil

On Wednesday evening, November 19, Justin Holcomb, Canon for Vocations in the Episcopal Diocese of South Florida and co-founder of REST (Real Escape from the Sex Trade) was a guest of the Theopolis Institute for a lecture on sex trafficking, given at Covenant Presbyterian Church, Birmingham. Dr. Holcomb's lecture began…

by TheopolisNovember 20, 2014

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Architecture of Fancy

T he title essay of John Summerson's Heavenly Mansions sets Gothic architecture in a story of the architecture of fancy. He begins with doll houses, and moves to aedicules, originally small buildings holding the image of a god that eventually became purely decorative alcoves. In Gothic, the ornament is turned…

February 17, 2017

Slow Grow

I n his Rise and Fall of American Growth , Robert J. Gordon argues that the growth rates for the American economy have leveled because the rate of innovation has leveled. And the rate of innovation has leveled, in part, because some innovations happen only once: The flood of inventions…

February 17, 2017

Anthropology of Deficiency

A ccording to Ingolf Dalferth ( Creatures of Possibility ), Christianity “contradicts a view that understands human beings in their fundamental dependence, finitude, and passivity, not merely biologically, but anthropologically, as deficient beings , interpreting their absolute dependence as absolute neediness, their finitude as a metaphysical evil, and their experience…

February 17, 2017

Passive Creativity

C hristian theology has long taught that we are “finite copies of the infinite Creator: created creators” (Dalferth, Creatures of Possibility , 198). Christian anthropology is eschatologically oriented: “Who we are is not determined by our origin; it will become evident in our future” (198). This comes to expression in…

February 17, 2017

Slackers

I t’s a challenge to get a clear idea of what slackers are really all about. Tom Lutz isolates the dilemma in his Doing Nothing (18-19): The famous or almost-famous idlers, loafers, loungers, and slackers throughout history had to produce work about not working in order for us to know…

February 17, 2017

Living Sacrifices

J oseph Ratzinger reflects on Romans 12:1-2 in his Theology of the Liturgy (349-51), which is evident in the Roman Canon's prayer that “our sacrifice may be rationabilis .” He writes: It is not enough—indeed, it is quite wrong—to translate this as saying that it should become rational. We are…

February 17, 2017

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