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Writing

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

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Christendom

The Fundamentals of the Faith

Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…

by Jackson WatersNovember 26, 2025
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Matthew

Testimonium Negativum: Josephus, Matthew’s Gospel, and New Evidence for the Coming Christ

1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…

by Jonathan SedlakNovember 18, 2025
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Genesis

Trauma and Glory: Overcoming Suffering with Joseph

Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…

by Lindsey TollefsonNovember 11, 2025
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Uncategorized

Lips like a Thread of Crimson: Midrash on a Theme from the Song of Solomon

The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…

by Mark BriansNovember 4, 2025
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Culture

The Rule of the Incarnate

This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…

by Ronald DodsonOctober 31, 2025
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Deuteronomy

A Father’s Liturgical Logic: The Pastoral Aim of the Davidic Revolution

In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 29, 2025
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History

Old Stone Gods

In 1834, Heinrich Heine had predicted a revival of Germany that was not dependent on Christianity but on a return to the savage roots of German character: “Christianity, and this is its greatest merit, has occasionally calmed the brutal German lust for battle, but it cannot destroy that savage joy.…

December 16, 2006
History

German Pentecost

1914 brought unity to a previously divided Germany. One pastor in Hanover wrote, “When the day of mobilisation had fully come, there were Germans all together in unity - villagers and city dwellers, conservatives and freethinkers, Social Democrats and Alsatians, [Hanoverian] Guelphs and Poles, Protestants and Catholics. Then suddenly there…

December 16, 2006
Theology

Atheisms

James Wood is one of the most public of our public atheists, but he has several bones to pick with other members of the brotherhood in a TNR review of Sam Harris’s latest book (TNR, December 18). He complains, for instance, against Dawkins’s use of Russell’s “celestial teapot” argument (ie,…

December 16, 2006
Philosophy

Multiple universes

Playwright, novelist, and philosophy Michael Frayn offers this critique of David Deutsch’s claim that quantum mechanics implies multiple, perhaps infinite, worlds: “If only we knew what proportion of David Deutsches was putting forward each of these theories we should be able to judge which of them correct. Sadly since we…

December 16, 2006
Biblical Studies

Israel is Egypt

The Lord says through Isaiah (chapter 19): “So I will incite Egyptians against Egyptians; and they will each fight against his brother and each against his neighbor, city against city and kingdom against kingdom.” Jesus says of Israel, “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and…

December 16, 2006
Media

Means and ends

Thoreau wrote, “Our inventions . . . are but improved means to an unimproved end. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate . . . . We are eager to tunnel…

December 15, 2006

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