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Writing

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

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Poetry

Seed-bearing Fruit

Ten-thousand ‘yeses’ and a single ‘no.’ From bough it dangles, beauty to the eyes, For belly, food, a fruit to make one wise. Too soon, they eat; they know; the leaves they sew, But, oh! the Love who asks, “Where did you go?” Confessions flow from under leaf’s disguise; A…

by Marc HaysAugust 16, 2023
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Augustine

Eternal Life Chiasm in John's Gospel

In his masterful work, De Doctrina Christiana , Augustine of Hippo writes: I would have learned men to know that the authors of our Scriptures use all those forms of expression which grammarians call by the Greek name tropes, and use them more freely and in greater variety than people…

by Doug PonderAugust 15, 2023
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Ruth

Lot, Ruth, and the Work of New Creation

“In accordance with the creation pattern, God sovereignly took hold of Adam and put him to sleep. Then God divided Adam by removing flesh and bone from his side, and restructured humanity into male and female. When Adam awoke, God distributed the woman to him. Adam gazed upon her and…

by Josh JensenAugust 8, 2023
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Culture

The Barbie Movie

Greta Gerwig’s new film, Barbie, has been criticized, probably rightly, for having too many ideas and layers to properly bring in any for a landing. Gerwig herself thought the script was so “ wild and anarchic ” that she was surprised WB agreed to make it. Many see it as…

by Robin HarrisAugust 1, 2023
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Matthew

Why Does John the Baptizer Look Like a Camel?

“Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey” (Matt. 3:4). Why is John the Baptizer clothed with camel’s hair? Why does he want to look like a camel? Or at least: what does he expect…

by Jeff MeyersJuly 26, 2023
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Literature

Stinking, Rotten Ministers of the Gospel

In the second greatest story ever told, The Brothers Karamazov , Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of a family plagued by the lasting legacy of sin’s destructive power and the all-surpassing truth that God is Light and in Him is no darkness. The young protagonist, Alyosha, is a monk committed…

by Garrett SoucyJuly 18, 2023

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Multiple Enlightenment

Milbank ( Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People ) points out that the Enlightenment was not simple one thing: “it can bedivided into (a) a Christian and sometimes post -Christian Ciceronian Stoicreaction against the voluntarism of ‘modern Christian’ thought;(b) a perpetuation of Reformation…

January 20, 2014

Political anthropology

Milbank’s Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People presupposes that there is a homology between metaphysics and politics. He identifies four assumptions of modern philosophy: “(1) the univocity rather than analogy of being; ( 2) knowledgeby representation rather than identity; ( 3 ) the…

January 20, 2014

Hero systems

Richard Beck ( The Slavery of Death ) quotes some impressive passages from Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death . They’reworthy of re-quoting. “This is what society is and always has been: asymbolic action system, a structure of statuses and roles, customsand rules for behavior, designed to serve as a…

January 20, 2014

Denial

Observing that Christians today “sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disoriented,” Walter Bruggemann suggests that the church is in a state of denial: “The church is less an evangelical defiance guided by faith, and must more a frightened, numb denial and deception that does not want…

January 20, 2014

Slavery of Death

I review Richard Beck’s stimulating The Slavery of Death at the Trinity House site.

January 20, 2014

Ark of Empire

Jeremiah’s message to Judah is that the Lord has given the earth into hands of his “servant,” Nebuchadnezzar: “I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him” (27:6).…

January 20, 2014

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