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Writing

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

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Politics

Utopia: A Brief Critique

Utopia is often accompanied by such adjectives as impossible, unrealistic, and impractical. In spite of that, it is not so hard to find some renowned people who actually maintain that is a very helpful and practical concept. Zygmunt Bauman ( Socialism: The Active Utopia ) argues that “utopian thinking belongs…

by Bogumil JarmulakMarch 5, 2015
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Culture

An Experiment in Film Criticism

C. S. Lewis was no fan of the cinema. He once described himself as “rather allergic to films” and after attending one he added in a letter to a friend, “Do not worry it shall not become a habit.” But though he was quick to dismiss films, his fruitful discussion…

by Remy WilkinsMarch 3, 2015
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Nevin Lectures

Nevin Lectures, 2015

Noted Catholic patristic scholar, Robert Louis Wilken, delivered the second annual Nevin Lectures at Beeson Divinity School's Hodges Chapel last Friday and Saturday, February 20-21, 2015. Wilken, the Emeritus William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia, traced the influence of the writings…

by TheopolisFebruary 25, 2015
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American Culture

50 Shades of Surprise

I confess that I’m surprised by the number of Christians who are surprised by the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey . Many are simply bewildered by the buzz the movie has generated. They shouldn’t be. This is the world we live in. More precisely, this is the country we…

by Aaron GunsaulusFebruary 24, 2015
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Ephesians

Our New Task

The newer perspective on justification by faith advocated in various studies in Pauline Theology by N.T. Wright and others, is now utterly relevant to our historical situation. Such work cannot be merely avant garde theologizing. In Luther’s day, everyone was “in” as regards the Church and the faith. We were…

by Richard BledsoeFebruary 19, 2015
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Church Calendar

Keep the Fast, Keep the Feast

Over the centuries, Christians have fasted for many reasons. Sometimes, the reasons have been good. The apostles and their churches fasted and prayed before selecting elders or ordaining missionaries. Christians have fasted in mourning for their sins. They have fasted and prayed to combat demons and to plead with God…

by Peter LeithartFebruary 18, 2015

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Global Republic

Frank Ninkovich’s The Global Republic minimizes the role of “Manifest Destiny” and the belief in American exceptionalism in the global rise of the United States. Instead, “the stimulus for the nation’s ascent to dizzying heights of power, far from emanating from within, was . . . of external origin, an…

October 13, 2014

Green: A History

A young Jane Fonda stares at you from the cover of Michel Pastoureau’s latest, Green: The History of a Color . She wears a dull brown-and-green tartan dress and leans back against the arm of a green sofa, large green-covered books discarded to one side. She’s smoking, but she’s taken…

October 13, 2014
Trinity

Inseparable Operations

In his contribution to Advancing Trinitarian Theology , Stephen Holmes defends the classic notion of divine simplicity, that God’s operations ad extra are undivided. Divine actions, he argues, arise from the eternal relations of origin within the Trinity: “Son and Spirit have a movement from an origin in their eternal…

October 13, 2014

Knowing in the Biblical Sense

An alert former student, Stephen Long, corrects my claim that the OT uses “X knew his wife” in only two places. In addition to Genesis 4 and 1 Samuel 1, there’s Genesis 38:26, where Judah “did not know” his daughter-in-law Tamar again. Long writes, “On the one hand, its existence…

October 13, 2014

Not Fearing the Devil

I summarize and discuss Adam Kotsko’s socio-cultural version of Christus Victor atonement theology at the Trinity House site .

October 13, 2014
Atonement

God’s Love, God’s Hate

Calvin quotes Augustine’s Tractates on John ( Institutes 2.16.4) in summarizing God’s motive in sending the Son: “God’s love is incomprehensible and unchangeable. For it was not after we were reconciled to him through the blood of his Son that he began to love us. Rather, he has loved us…

October 10, 2014

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