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

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American Religion

Protestantism's Lost Soul

D. G. Hart’s The Lost Soul of American Protestantism vividly clarifies the differences between evangelical and Confessional Protestantism. In part the book is a manifesto for historians of American religion. Hart argues that historians of American Protestantism have operated with a simplistic binary contrast of evangelical/conservative v. liberal/progressive. At best,…

by Peter LeithartAugust 18, 2015
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Books

The Idiot and the Limits of Compassion

Dostoyevsky’s novel, The Idiot , like his other major works, is a complex evaluation of the human condition—a juxtaposition of the innate goodness and innate evil that resides within every human heart. There is much one can say about The Idiot . I am no specialist of Russian literature, or…

by Gerald HiestandAugust 13, 2015
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Homosexuality

If There is “Natural Law” How Can People Believe in Same-Sex Marriage?

At risk of violating some secret handshake agreement on some important nuance to “natural law,” I will sum up what I understand in my own words. As far as I can tell natural law is supposed to be an area of knowledge that all people should be able to agree…

by Mark HorneAugust 11, 2015
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Biblical Studies

Cosmic Language, 2

The first installment of this article may be found here . The Image of Man This brings us to a substitutionary atonement which we do understand, the fulfilment of the cruciform Tabernacle in the cross of Christ. Although Jesus’ execution was Physical and Social, it was primarily Personal . Beginning…

by Mike BullAugust 6, 2015
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Genesis

Every Noise Appalls

The first two essays in this series drew attention to the structure of the first part of Macbeth and to the way Shakespeare incorporates the Garden of Eden into his story. Macbeth , we saw, is a temptation story in which, compared to the Biblical story, the temptation itself is…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 4, 2015
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Revelation

The Warrior and the City: A Wedding Homily

Revelation 19:6-9 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For theLord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him,…

by Peter LeithartAugust 3, 2015

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Theology

All Time and None

My colleague Jonathan McIntosh pointed me to Anselm’s discussion of God’s relation to time in the Monologion (available in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works ). It’s a complex discussion. On the one hand, the infinite nature cannot exist finitely ( determinate ) at a particular place or time, so…

April 30, 2013

Apocalypse in nuce

Four simple points to guide any sane reading of Revelation. 1) Revelation is a book of the Bible. It is packed with Old Testament language and imagery, and cannot be understood without that Old Testament background. One scholar has suggested that Revelation uses the Old Testament “compositionally” rather than “expositionally”…

April 30, 2013

Let there be light

Edison is credited for inventing the electric light, but as Ernest Freeberg notes in his The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America , Edison was part of a transAtlantic network of researchers and relied on capital investments to keep his experiments going. And once he…

April 29, 2013

Christ Clothed

Segundo Galilea notes in The Way of Living Faith: A Spirituality of Liberation that sacramentality represents a problem for contemporary spirituality. But sacraments are not the problem. Sacraments, and “the Word of God that shapes every sacrament,” are the solution. As Galilea says, “Jesus, his life and liberation, is found…

April 29, 2013

A Cusan Modernity?

I summarize some aspects of the work of Nicholas of Cusa at the Trinity House web site.

April 29, 2013

Eucharistic meditation

1 Corinthians 11:20: Paul calls this meal the “Lord’s Supper.” We have eaten together about five hundred times. This is the last time I’ll serve at this table as pastor of Trinity Reformed Church, but after I’m gone, you’ll have the same host. Jesus is the host of this meal.…

April 28, 2013

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