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

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John

Engaging John, Engaging One Another

The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 30, 2014
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Leviticus

Zoemics

Naphtali Meshel observes in his new The "Grammar" of Sacrifice that scholars have been talking for decades about the "grammatical" character of ritual and sacrifice in general, but have never actually analyzed a specific ritual or sacrificial system grammatically. Some even talk about a "universal grammar" of sacrifice "even though…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 29, 2014
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Isaiah

God in the Dock

Some Christians are rather breezy about the problem of evil. We shouldn't be. Do I need to remind you of the grisly beheadings that have taken place over the past few weeks? Do I need to remind you of the blood of innocents that’s been spilled in our own country?…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 24, 2014
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Baptism

Recreated in Four Dimensions

Have you ever been to a wedding where the heavens opened and a voice declared the couple “husband and wife”? Few of us have. Beautiful as they are, most marriages are quite mundane. Yet when Jesus talks about marriage, He describes it as something that God does: “What God has…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 22, 2014
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Matthew

The Least Of These

Jesus is the last and greatest of the Prophets. He is the Prophet that Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 18). That means He gives the final word, brings the blueprints for the final temple, speaks the final world into existence, and has complete and permanent access to the divine court, where He…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 17, 2014
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Galatians

Paul and the Troublers of Galatia

Paul stands against those who are “troubling” or “disturbing” the Galatians churches ( tarasso ; 1:7; also in 5:10). The reference seems to be two great troublers from the Old Testament. First, Achan is described as a “troubler” for the problems he causes in the aftermath of the battle at…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 15, 2014

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God With Us

In his The Person of Christ (Contours of Christian Theology) (180) , Donald MacLeod gives this vivid sketch of what it meant for the Word to dwell among us: “For the Son of God, the incarnation meant a whole new set of relationships: with his father and mother; with his…

January 12, 2013

Trinity House: Robert Wilken says…

The launching of Trinity House is very good news for theological education. Its program is at once fresh and innovative and at the same time rooted deeply in the Church’s most ancient traditions. This is no conventional academic institute. Its directors are as much interested in the practice of prayer…

January 12, 2013

Getting Jenson Wrong

In a brief discussion, Michael Horton ( Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology , 97) claims that for Robert Jenson “God [is] ‘a fugue, a conversation, a personal event’” and gives this rejoinder: “It is one thing to say that the triune God is three persons . . . engaged…

January 12, 2013

What Porn Watchers Watch

DePaul’s Carolyn Bronstein reviews the forthcoming biopic of Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace at the Atlantic . It’s not easy reading: “Linda died at 53 after a Denver automobile accident, but her account of sexual slavery on the set of Deep Throat is preserved in her 1980 autobiography, Ordeal .…

January 11, 2013

Torture on Film

In the NYRB , Steve Coll complains about the depiction of torture in Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty . The film poses as a form of journalism, flashing a “based on real events” in the early frames. Coll doesn’t think it measures up. For one thing, the film all…

January 11, 2013

House of Treasures

The ark of the covenant is a type of Christ, Bede says ( Bede: On the Tabernacle (Liverpool University Press - Translated Texts for Historians) , 20). It is also a type of the church: “the ark can also be taken figuratively as the Holy Church which is constructed from…

January 11, 2013

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