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Writing

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

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Creation

Why Genesis Matters

Creationism is debated widely in the US, especially when it comes to teaching creation as an alternative theory of origins in public schools. Every few months, there’s another poll showing that many Americans still believe Ussher’s claim that the world was created around 4000 BC, which always elicits a contemptuous…

by Peter LeithartAugust 20, 2014
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Books

Canary in the Coal Shaft

Walker Percy died in 1990, but his six published novels and his collections of essays are more relevant than when he wrote them. Percy was an American Dostoevsky, and that was no accident. “The European novels,” he says in a 1974 interview, “are more philosophical, more novels of ideas.” Dostoevsky,…

by Peter LeithartAugust 18, 2014
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Children

Parenting in the Spirit

The Spirit is God’s agent for renewing the creation, for restoring bonds between nations, for knitting together people into the body of Christ. The Spirit is the renewer of the world, and the bond of all relations. That means that if you want your family to be knit together, if…

by Peter LeithartAugust 13, 2014
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Revelation

Hunter Into Prey

In their basic physical sense , the verbs translated as "persecute" in the Bible mean “chase” or “pursue,” and that fits the context quite naturally. As Pharaoh “pursued” (LXX, dioko ; Heb. radaph ) Israel into the wilderness, for example, so the dragon chases the woman back to her place…

by Peter LeithartAugust 11, 2014
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Books

Edwards Our Contemporary

Seng-Kong Tan’s Fullness Received and Returned is a densely argued, thoroughly researched, contextually sensitive study of participation in the soteriology of Jonathan Edwards. Along the way, Tan deals with many of the central themes in Edwards’s theology. As with many recent studies of Edwards, Tan’s monograph demonstrates both Edwards’s creativity…

by Peter LeithartAugust 6, 2014
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Art

Portrait of the Artist as Aesthetic Martyr

The title of James Joyce’s first novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man indicates that it is a bildungsroman , a story of formation that describes the formative experiences of a poet who aspires to artistic greatness. The education described is Joyce’s own. The novel recounts the failing…

by Peter LeithartAugust 4, 2014

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Caught up to heaven

After they die, the two witnesses are caught up to heaven (Revelation 11:12). As James Jordan points out in his lectures on Revelation , this is not the first time someone is caught up to heaven. Enoch was, so was Elijah. Then Jesus, then the witnesses. Each is a preacher…

February 7, 2013

Trinity House: A Pastor’s Perspective

Throughout the Christian centuries the primary means God has used to form his people as Christ’s inheritance is their gathering to him in worship where they hear his word, rejoice in his grace, revere his Name, and receive his many gifts. For too long now this sacred meeting of man…

February 7, 2013

Evil for Evil?

Darrin Belousek ( Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church ) wants to disconnect substitutionary atonement from the principle of retribution, the notion that “doing justice in response to crime requires ‘repaying’ the offender his ‘due’ in punishment for the crime and…

February 7, 2013

Qur’an on the Jews

Philip Jenkins argues in Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses that, though “a few passages in the Hadith are venomously anti-Jewish,” none in the Qur’an are. And the anti-Jewish statements in the Qur’an derive, he suggests, from Jewish sources: “Historians have long known that…

February 6, 2013

Shakespeare’s Richard

With the splashy discovery of the supposed remains of Richard III by archaeologists from the University of Leicester, the old question of Shakespeare’s Richard demands review. Sarah Knight and Mary Ann Lund summarize the contemporary testimonies to Richard’s physical appearance, including Shakespeare’s innovations: “If Shakespeare can be absolved of inventing…

February 6, 2013

Drones Unleashed

David Cole offers a chilling analysis of the Justice Department white paper on drones. The news reports have highlighted the fact that the document endorses killing US citizens who are deemed by “an informed, high-level official” to be “an imminent threat” against the US, provided the person cannot be captured…

February 6, 2013

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