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Writing

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

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Technology

Simulation as Inoculation

Every advent of new media creates the justifiable reaction from some that the necessarily accompanied amputation may not be worth the extension made possible by the new tools. This is not unique to the Digital Age. Lamoignon Malesherbes, the French politician who was counsel for the defense of Louis XVI,…

by Garrett SoucyApril 2, 2024
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Eschatology

Reject Optimism

A response to Gage Crowder's " The Hole in our Hope ?" Already, the first pages of the Bible promise a bright future. The story starts with the creation of heaven and earth, where heaven is perfect, but the earth is in a state of formless emptiness. Yet, God takes…

by Bogumil JarmulakMarch 27, 2024
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Eschatology

The Hole in our Hope? A Rejoinder

A rejoinder to Bubu Jarmulak's essay, " Embrace Pessimism ." Whereas calumnious critiques are reflections of more on the critic than the work criticized, good critiques are always opportunities for reassessment and improvement if they are received as such . Since its renaissance, the biblical doctrine of postmillennialism—or “optimistic eschatology,”…

by Gage CrowderMarch 26, 2024
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Biblical Studies

Jesus Did Not Pray to Avoid the Cross at Gethsemane

Several decades ago, a pastor (and friend) mentioned in passing at one of our regular breakfasts together that he wasn’t satisfied with the usual reading of Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane, the usual reading being that Jesus asked the Father to avoid the Cross at Gethsemane. We turned to the passage,…

by James R. RogersMarch 19, 2024
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Church Music

Holy Toledo: A Critique of Eclecticism

On May 21, 1604, the cathedral of Toledo in Spain held job interviews for the post of choirmaster, the head of music at the church. The position had been vacated when the previous occupant, Alonso Lobo, was poached by the nearby cathedral of Seville, and Toledo needed a replacement who…

by John AhernMarch 5, 2024
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Covenant

The Docetic Covenant and Phantom Church Membership

Imagine — counterfactually: on the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus held up an empty hand and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant poured out for you. Drink of it.’ But there was no cup, no wine, nothing. If there’s no sign of the covenant, is there…

by John CarpenterFebruary 27, 2024

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Philosophy

Suarez and Descartes

Searching for precedents for Descartes’ notion that God is causa sui Jean-Luc Marion finds that “Suarez anticipates Descartes’ daring formula, de ipso Deo . . . , because, like him, he begins by submitting God to what will become the principle of reason, and, in order to succeed in this,…

September 3, 2007

Walk through the tabernacle

You are salt: Jesus is at the altar, considering the salt that is added to the offerings. The earth is the altar, the nations the sacrifice (Romans 16), and the disciples of Jesus the flavoring on the offering. You are a light on a lamp: Jesus is in the Holy…

September 3, 2007
History

Time and Social Theory

In her critical study of sociology’s understanding of time, Barbara Adam contrasts the multiform experience of time in life with the much thinner understanding of time in theory: “In everyday life . . . time can mean a variety of things. We can have a ‘good time at a party,’…

September 3, 2007

Sermon outline

INTRODUCTION Jesus came to fulfill the law and prophets, not to abolish them. Beginning in 5:21, He shows in some detail what that means. THE TEXT “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the…

September 3, 2007

Eucharistic meditation

2 Corinthians 2:15-16: For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? The…

September 2, 2007

Baptismal meditation

Ezekiel 16: 3-6: Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your birth and your nativity are from the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. As for your nativity, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you…

September 2, 2007

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