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Writing

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

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Interview

The Way My Story Goes: Interview with Singer-Songwriter Jamie Soles

Jamie Soles is the reason I know my way around a guitar. When my guitar teacher put the sheet music for Eine Kleine Nachtmusick in my fourteen-year-old hands, I balked. He gave me “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” I learned half of it. At home, I ignored my teacher’s instructions and tugged…

by Christian LeithartMarch 12, 2019
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Epistemology

The Mother’s Smile: Integrative Beauty

This is a tough era for mothers. Regard for mothers, while it is always booming in some circles, is decidedly lacking in the prevailing winds of the milieu. In high demand by contrast is contribution to the work force, being a consumer, and basic economic survival, often as a solitary…

by Esther Lightcap MeekMarch 5, 2019
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Epistemology

Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World: D.C. Schindler: Are You Open to the Heart of Things?

After the dark quiet of the year’s beginning, I return now to pick up the threads of my reflection on integration. This is my own personal inquiry, and for me it is no academic exercise but rather the forefront of my personal quest for the real. My hope is that…

by Esther Lightcap MeekFebruary 26, 2019
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Chiasm

The Chiastic Structure of Lord of the Rings

The chiastic structure of The Hobbit we considered in the previous essay is highly suggestive of what might lie in store for The Lord of the Rings saga. It is undoubtedly the case that J. R. R. Tolkien was a literary craftsman. It may even be the case he is…

by Kelly KerrFebruary 19, 2019
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Chiasm

The Chiastic Structure of the Hobbit

Structure plays an important part of any literary work, whether poetry or prose. It adds to the beauty and depth of the work and allows insight to be gained about what the author is trying to communicate. The question that concerns us here is whether or not there exists an…

by Kelly KerrFebruary 5, 2019
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Movies

Learning the Language of Arrival

Can we learn to communicate from an outside intelligence? Spoiler Alert! If you have not yet seen the movie, this article may provide you with a great deal more information than you wished to know at this point. Since the 1999 film The Matrix received careful scrutiny on many fronts…

by Eric RobinsonJanuary 29, 2019

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The Weapons of Our Warfare

In The Empty Men , his study of the heroic theme in the Bible, Gregory Mobley catalogs some of the odd weapons used by biblical warriors: “In Judges and 1 Samuel, the relative inferiority of the weapons of the biblical heroes is emphasized. Shamgar ben Anat is lauded for killing…

December 11, 2014

Individualist Collectivism

I have a great deal of sympathy with Jose Miranda’s claim (in Marx and the Bible ) that Paul is writing about justice in Romans, and that the apostles is concerned “with the problem of society . . . of human civilization. His anguish is over the injustice which reigns…

December 11, 2014

Baptized into the New Age

John Dunnill ( Body and Sacrifice , 128-9) argues that for Paul baptism is more than a “sign” of the new age: “For him, resurrection is the actual transformation of the mortal body of Jesus, the reversal of the deathward trend established by Adam: not merely the resuscitation of a…

December 10, 2014

Sacrificial death?

In some ways, Daniel Ullucci’s The Christian Rejection of Animal Sacrifice helpfully complicates our picture of views on ancient sacrifice, both pre-Christian and Christian. He challenges the standard narrative that claims that Christians straightforwardly and pretty much immediately recognized Jesus’ death as a final sacrifice, and pretty much immediately abandoned…

December 10, 2014

The Universe is a Kitchen

In a recent article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion , Natalie Gummer lays out the sacrificial cosmology embodied in early Buddhist texts. The premise is that the world is a kitchen, in which things take the forms of ingredients in a cosmic stew - saps, juices,…

December 10, 2014

Horizontal Hierarchy

In his monograph on Israel’s Tabernacle as Social Space , Mark George makes the observation that tabernacle space is “configured horizontally”: “There is not a single step, platform, or dais in tabernacle space. No steps differentiate court space from common space, holy space from court space, or most holy space…

December 10, 2014

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