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Advent

Advent and Christmas Music Recommendations

Inspired by our recent podcast on Christmas and Advent music recommendations, we offer here a list of excellent recordings that are sure to enrich your Advent and Christmas season. Praetorius: Mass for Christmas Morning Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort and Players Amazon | Spotify | Apple Music 2. Christmas…

by John Ahern and Paul BuckleyDecember 23, 2020
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Advent

Between the Altar and the City: Isaiah 65:17-25

In the year 1483 in the city of Nuremberg, the leaders of the renowned Saint Lawrence Church were seeking to redesign their altar, and above the table where the priests presided over the eucharist, they wanted new art installed above the prestigious Krell altar. What they decided on took everyone…

by Casey BedellDecember 22, 2020
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Advent

Why We're the Real Seventh Day Adventists

The consequences of disobedience start with exile from the garden of God and the Tree of Yahweh, but they do not end there. They cascade down through the structure of the dynastic order. Everything which had previously been given in the Kingdom of Elohim is either taken back or curtailed…

by Jerry BowyerDecember 18, 2020
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Biblical Studies

Psalm 23: A Lesson in Reading Biblical Poetry

Parallelism: A Course Correction If you have ever studied Hebrew poetry, you have probably heard its basic poetic feature described as “parallelism.” Hebrew poetry is not metered, it does not rhyme, it does not employ many of the common poetical tropes, but its distinctive (and almost universal) feature is commonly…

by Ryan HandermannDecember 15, 2020
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Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 17 and the Separation of Powers

In The Crown and the Courts , David C. Flatto traces the development of the idea of judicial independence in Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures – particularly Deuteronomy 17 – from the Second Temple and early rabbinic periods. These periods roughly span 400 BC to 300 AD. Flatto does not…

by James R. RogersDecember 11, 2020
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Advent

Zechariah and John: A Story in Names

A curious feature of the Infancy Narratives in the Gospel of Luke is the naming of John the Baptist. When the angel appears to Zechariah, he is instructed to give his promised son the name John (Luke 1:13). On the day of John’s circumcision, Luke tells us that “they [presumably…

by Rhys LavertyDecember 8, 2020

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Protestant Sacred Space

S acred Space in Early Modern Europe , edited by Will Coster and Andrew Spicer, aims to fill a gap in accounts of early modern Europe. Despite intense attention to sacred space among anthropologists, scholars of comparative religion, historians, and sociologists, few studies of early modern Europe have paid attention…

April 4, 2017

Disenchanting Protestantism?

S cott Hendrix argues that the Reformation was united by an agenda of Christianization. By “Christianization,” he means, first, the effort “to reform the rituals of late-medieval piety in conformity with sound doctrine” and, second, the goal “to create more sincere and intentional believers by transforming people's minds and hearts”…

April 3, 2017

Pew Wars

Margo Todd's The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland is an extraordinarily rich study. One brief note will serve to illustrate. “A visitor to an early seventeenth-century Scottish church had no difficulty seeing the social structure of the community in the arrangement of seats.” The principle was simple: The…

March 31, 2017
American Politics

Blue State Secession

It's time for “Bluexit,” argues Kevin Baker at The New Republic , a blue-state secession. Here's the thesis: Blues fund most of the federal government, and are responsible for most of the economic output of the country. Red states receive vastly more federal aid than they pay in, and then…

March 31, 2017

Stating the Obvious

M ona Charen states the obvious : “There are good and bad arguments against immigration.” In today's overheated political climate, though, the obvious gets drowned by sensational horrors. The horrors are truly horrific, but they aren't typical. Charen writes, “I am sympathetic to some restrictionist points, but smearing immigrants as…

March 31, 2017

Power in Weakness

I n an essay on Alexander Schmemann (in Ordering Love , 301-2), David L. Schindler observes that “Creaturely power begins in wonder and gratitude before the inherent beauty of the other. The power of creaturely being originates and consists primarily in the beauty of the Other: it is the attractiveness…

March 31, 2017

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