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Writing

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

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Culture

Why We Should Jettison the “Strong Female Character”: (Part 1)

The trailer for the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story , was released last week. Following the success of the revival of the franchise in last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens , anticipation is unsurprisingly at a fever pitch. As in the case of The…

by Alastair RobertsMarch 6, 2018
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Epistemology

Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World: Integration Requires an Integrative Epistemology: Michael Polanyi

The word, “integration,” can sound abstract, technical, unhelpful. But as I represented it in my first installment on this matter , I take it instead to be the central desire of our lives. We long to integrate life, and to integrate ourselves. I offered as a preliminary definition, that integration…

by Esther Lightcap MeekMarch 1, 2018
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How to Worship

Worship as Ordination

Anyone who has read his Bible straight through has done it. Admit it. When you get to those parts in Exodus that deal with the instructions for and construction of the Tabernacle, your eyes glaze over and your mind begins to wander. Measurements, lists of materials, meticulous details about clothes…

by Bill SmithFebruary 27, 2018
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Biblical Theology

Bread and Cup

This article is a continuation of James Jordan's article, " From Bread to Wine ". We will here investigate the use of the word “cup” for the wine. I suggest that the cup itself corresponds to the firmament shell between heaven and earth, and that the liquid in the cup…

by James B. JordanFebruary 22, 2018
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Atonement

Streams in the Desert

And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered…

by Arthur KayFebruary 20, 2018
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Biblical Theology

From Bread to Wine

In the Bible, bread (and beer, usually translated “strong drink,” liquid bread made from grain) is priestly and wine is kingly and prophetic. Bread comes first and wine later. Bread is alpha food while wine is omega food. You eat bread in the morning and drink wine at night. Bread…

by James B. JordanFebruary 15, 2018

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Sacrificial and Sacred

Did the Greeks sacrifice all the animals they ate? Gunnel Ekroth (“Meat in ancient Greece”) says No, though he also says that most of the meat they ate was “sacred,” even if not “sacrificial.” The distinction of the two is crucial. Drawing mainly from osteological evidence to supplement that from…

April 12, 2014

Portion

Gunnel Ekroth considers the important role that decisions by lot played in Greek society: “This was not an infrequent phenomenon in Greek society and was encountered not only at sacrifices, but also when land was parcelled out at colonial undertakings as well as at the selection of political magistrates. The…

April 12, 2014

Snowden and Bureaucracy

In a TLS review of Luke Harding’s The Snowden Files , Edward Luttwak traces things back to dynamics within the post-9/11 intelligence bureaucracy. In Luttwak’s telling, it’s a case study of bureaucratic expansion. He argues that “Only a few hundred were really justified of the many thousands employed to service…

April 12, 2014

Naturally unnatural

Joan Cadden’s Nothing Natural is Shameful is many things: A careful study of the medieval reception and use of various Aristotelian texts; an analysis of medieval natural philosophy and ethics and the relation between the two; a contribution to research about Western views of sodomy; a study of medieval notions…

April 12, 2014

Riding on the Clouds

Pastor Arthur Kay offers these thoughts on the symbolism of Palm Sunday: “Palms are associated with covering clouds (Feast of Booths, Leviticus 23:40). They are also associated with the nations (Exodus 15:27; Revelation 7:9). Therefore, on Palm Sunday, Jesus is already coming on the clouds – He rides on palm…

April 11, 2014

Greek Rape

No other mythology, writes Eva Kuels in The Reign of the Phallus , gives rape a more prominent role than that of Greece (49). In our expurgated handbooks of mythology, it’s called “dalliance” or somesuch, but Kuels argues that the artifacts show that what’s happening is rape. In most cases,…

April 11, 2014

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