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Writing

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

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Biblical Horizons

Writing and Thinking

During one of my AAPC lectures I read a portion of Richard Mitchell’s provocative little book The Underground Grammarian . Here’s the portion I read: The mind is a rudderless wanderer blown here or there by any puff of breeze. If I mention watermelons, you must think of watermelons; if…

by Jeff MeyersJanuary 14, 2008
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Biblical Studies

Psalms 23-29: Analysis

This is the donation thank-you essay for January 2008. Our studies in the Psalms go out month by month in response to donations. I’m putting this one up here as an example, and also because the version I actually mailed out contained several egregious arithmetical errors! So, here is the…

by James B. JordanJanuary 6, 2008
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American Culture

The Case Against Western Civilization, Parts 1-7

Part 1: Introduction The collapse of the Western tradition in the United States, seen in the hostility to Christianity in government and education, and the elimination of “traditional” or “canon” learning from our institutions of middle and higher learning, provides a crisis and an opportunity for serious believers at the…

by James B. JordanDecember 5, 2007
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Theologia

On Forgiving Oneself: Nine Reasons Why It Can Be Appropriate

While “forgiving oneself” is widely accepted in the secular world as a legitimate and needful thing to do, Christians are rightly suspicious. After all, God is the one who forgives. When we sin against other people, we need to seek their forgiveness, not our own. Nevertheless after looking at Vine’s…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2007
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Biblical Studies

Every Word Matters to the Story

This was originally published as HIStory in the column, “A Pastor’s Perspective” in Ligonier Ministrie’s Tabletalk Magazine . I am not sure of the date but it was probably published in 1999 or 2000. Quick! What’s the basic message of the Bible? Summarize it in as few words as possible…

by Mark HorneJune 6, 2007
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Church Government

The Pastorate and the Presbytery

A Brief Explanation of What a Presbytery Is & Why Pastors in Presbyterian Denominations are Members of Them A belief in the primacy of the local congregation of the Church, I think, reflects the gut feeling of most North American Evangelicals. As a result, the form of Church government universally…

by Mark HorneJune 5, 2007

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Modernity's Wager

A dam Seligman compares Modernity's Wager to Pascal's: Pascal’s wager of the seventeenth century, of reason for faith, was replaced in the eighteenth century by a wager over the terms of sacrality. Modern culture and politics, I argue, staked its all on the ability to construct an authoritative locus of…

December 16, 2016

Tale of Two Monsters

T imothy Beal ( Religion and Its Monsters ) analyzes Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1926) as a tale of two monsters. First is “unhindered industry . . . as a cult of human sacrifice to the industrial machine.” The city's “power house” is a “giant, steam-spewing industrial machine . .…

December 16, 2016

Medieval Figures

I n his recent study of figural exegesis, Time and the Word , Ephraim Radner traces the “fate of figural reading.” The Middle Ages form a crucial stage in that history. Drawing on the work of Friedrich Ohly, Radner argues that the “medieval typology was part of a long-standing outlook…

December 16, 2016

Lessons from Alabama

F ellow Alabamian Quin Hillyer says that Trump should pay attention to what's happening in Alabama if he wants to help American workers. Forbes.com rated Mobile America's top mid-sized city for manufacturing growth in 2015, and the growth has come from foreign companies: With 4,200 employees, Austal Shipyards is the…

December 16, 2016

Berkeley's Book of Nature

C ostica Bradatan wants us to attend to The Other Bishop Berkeley . The Berkeley that is most often studied is the one who addresses issues of interest to contemporary philosophy. Bradatan looks instead at Berkeley's sources and the uses he makes of them. From this angle, it becomes apparent…

December 16, 2016

Novel-Reading and Enlightenment

A llison Coudert ( Religion, Magic, and Science in Early Modern Europe and America ) speaks of an “anthropological revolution” taking place in the eighteenth century, as Europeans became optimistic about the future prospects of human evolution and improvement. This was partly the result of assaults on the doctrine of…

December 16, 2016

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