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Writing

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

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Technology

Simulation as Inoculation

Every advent of new media creates the justifiable reaction from some that the necessarily accompanied amputation may not be worth the extension made possible by the new tools. This is not unique to the Digital Age. Lamoignon Malesherbes, the French politician who was counsel for the defense of Louis XVI,…

by Garrett SoucyApril 2, 2024
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Eschatology

Reject Optimism

A response to Gage Crowder's " The Hole in our Hope ?" Already, the first pages of the Bible promise a bright future. The story starts with the creation of heaven and earth, where heaven is perfect, but the earth is in a state of formless emptiness. Yet, God takes…

by Bogumil JarmulakMarch 27, 2024
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Eschatology

The Hole in our Hope? A Rejoinder

A rejoinder to Bubu Jarmulak's essay, " Embrace Pessimism ." Whereas calumnious critiques are reflections of more on the critic than the work criticized, good critiques are always opportunities for reassessment and improvement if they are received as such . Since its renaissance, the biblical doctrine of postmillennialism—or “optimistic eschatology,”…

by Gage CrowderMarch 26, 2024
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Biblical Studies

Jesus Did Not Pray to Avoid the Cross at Gethsemane

Several decades ago, a pastor (and friend) mentioned in passing at one of our regular breakfasts together that he wasn’t satisfied with the usual reading of Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane, the usual reading being that Jesus asked the Father to avoid the Cross at Gethsemane. We turned to the passage,…

by James R. RogersMarch 19, 2024
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Church Music

Holy Toledo: A Critique of Eclecticism

On May 21, 1604, the cathedral of Toledo in Spain held job interviews for the post of choirmaster, the head of music at the church. The position had been vacated when the previous occupant, Alonso Lobo, was poached by the nearby cathedral of Seville, and Toledo needed a replacement who…

by John AhernMarch 5, 2024
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Covenant

The Docetic Covenant and Phantom Church Membership

Imagine — counterfactually: on the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus held up an empty hand and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant poured out for you. Drink of it.’ But there was no cup, no wine, nothing. If there’s no sign of the covenant, is there…

by John CarpenterFebruary 27, 2024

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That Serpent the Devil

At the same SBL seminar, Rusty Reno examined Genesis 3:1, following the traditional interpretation that the serpent is a disguise for the devil. He dealt with the larger pattern of biblical evidence first, showing that the Bible links the devil and the serpent, and links the devil to acts of…

November 19, 2007

The First Sin

J. Richard Middleton gave an intriguing paper on Genesis 2-3 at an SBL seminar on the theological interpretation of Scripture. He was trying to answer the question of the nature of the first sin, and concluded that the first sin, which led to a proliferation of sin in succeeding generations,…

November 19, 2007
History

Celebrity

An article in the current issue of Sociological Theory explores the status-hierarchy created by celebrity, a kind of status ignored by Weber in his treatment of status in capitalist societies. The abstract says, “Max Weber’s fragmentary writings on social status suggest that differentiation on this basis should disappear as capitalism…

November 17, 2007
Politics

Obama’s faith

In the December issue of The Atlantic , Andrew Sullivan describes Barak Obama’s conversion. In an interview with Sullivan, Obama said, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values or ideals that were first instilled in my from my mother, who was,…

November 17, 2007
Politics

Obama’s faith

In the December issue of The Atlantic , Andrew Sullivan describes Barak Obama’s conversion. In an interview with Sullivan, Obama said, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values or ideals that were first instilled in my from my mother, who was,…

November 17, 2007
Literature

The Gaze

David Bevington points out in his performance history of Shakespeare that in both Measure for Measure and The Tempest , the villainous characters are those that attempt to elude the all-seeing surveillance of the Duke and Prospero. Villains are particularly villainous when they think they can do evil without detection.

November 17, 2007

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