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Writing

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

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Advent

Why Stalker Should be Added to Your Christmas Watchlist

Stalker is a Soviet-era film by Andrei Tarkovsky in which an enigmatic location comes into existence either through an alien crash or a nuclear disaster; the film never makes it clear, but knowing Tarkovsky’s criticism of the spectacle nature of the alien motif after his own filming of Solaris and…

by Garrett SoucyDecember 19, 2023
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Motherhood

A Greater Capacity

I was scrolling through Instagram on the night of Thanksgiving, the only one awake (as usual), coming down from my extrovert-high after all the conversation and merriment of the day, when I came across a post that stopped me in my tracks. The post contained a picture-perfect image of some…

by Lindsey MurphyDecember 18, 2023
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Theopolis News

The 2024 James B. Jordan Prize

The Theopolis Institute is pleased to announce the fourth round of the James B. Jordan Prize to honor outstanding doctoral dissertations in biblical theology. James Jordan is one of the most insightful biblical scholars of our time. The Jordan Prize exists to encourage more of the deep Scriptural investigation of…

by Peter LeithartDecember 15, 2023
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Eschatology

What Kind of Story Is History?

Suppose I were to write three versions of a story. In every version, the first half of the book looks forward to the coming of the king. There are promises about him and about how glorious his kingdom will be, about how his kingdom will fill the earth with peace…

by John BarachDecember 12, 2023
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Galatians

Re-Considering Doug Wilson's "Covenant with Hagar"

Introduction Doug Wilson’s American Milk and Honey is now available. There’s a great deal in the book worth commenting on, and I anticipate engaging with that material more broadly in the near future. In the lead up to its release, however, Moscow has not been silent concerning Israel, the Jews,…

by Gabe HarderDecember 11, 2023
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Parables

The Older Son

Our telling of the Prodigal Son parable usually (and rightly) focuses on the runaway younger brother: the lost son returns, and his father joyfully and graciously receives him. But the full story has an additional element: an angry older brother. Jesus uses the older brother to rebuke the religious leaders…

by Tim NicholsDecember 6, 2023

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Widowed Israel

After David sins with Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan comes to him with a “case” involving a rich man preying on his poor neighbor. It’s David’s own life, but he doesn’t recognize it, and his words of condemnation get turned against him: “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12). When Absalom…

October 7, 2014

Prohibited Speech

Wyatt Mason’s wide-ranging NYT interview with Marilynne Robinson is full of interest for Robinson’s fans. In one of the most incisive portions of the interview, Robinson answers Mason’s question, “What do you think people should be talking about more?” Her consciousness streams in reply: “‘One of the things that bothers…

October 7, 2014

Back to the Feudal

At Bloomberg , Glen Carey observes that “The Middle East may be sliding toward a warlord era, with nation-states increasingly struggling to control all their territory and millions living under the rule of emergent local chiefs and movements.” He quotes Chatham House fellow Nadim Shehadi’s claim that “It is almost…

October 6, 2014

Poetic Beasts

Kathleen Rooney says that poets write animal poetry for two reasons: “one is because animals provide a metaphorical window into the human world from a surprising vantage. Another is because of their very inhumanness and potential sublimity. A successful animal poem makes use of both, weighing those two impulses against…

October 6, 2014
Atonement

Necessity of Atonement

Questions about the “necessity” of atonement are usually framed in terms of the character of God and the nature of sinful humanity. Given these two factors, could God have followed any other path than the cross? Augustine and Aquinas said Yes, Anselm said No. But God and sinful humanity aren’t…

October 6, 2014
Atonement

Disruptive Gospel

Some excerpts from Ivor Davidson’s fine introduction to God of Salvation . Davidson stresses the intrusive character of the gospel’s God. The story is “profoundly startling, disruptive of natural hypotheses about the conceivable relationship of divinity and finitude, shattering to instinctive assumptions that creaturely life must be immune from personal…

October 6, 2014

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