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Writing

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

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Advent

Triune Advent

Our creeds, taking cues from Matthew 28:18-20 and other biblical texts, speak of the order of the Trinity as “Father, Son, Spirit.” This order is evident in the order of redemption as well: the Father sends the Son, who ascends to heaven to receive and send the Spirit. Luke 1,…

by Peter LeithartDecember 4, 2013
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Language

Relations, Uncreated and Created

The category of “relation” has long been central to Trinitarian theology, [1] but in recent theology it has become a transcendental, as many theologians have argued that relationality is the leading feature not only of divine life but of created life. [2] Human beings made in the image of the…

by Peter LeithartDecember 2, 2013
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Theopolis News

Reformational Catholicism

Listen to Trinity House President Peter Leithart discuss his article on the End of Protestantism with LCMS pastor Todd Wilken at Issues, Etc .

by Peter LeithartNovember 27, 2013
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Matthew

The Kingdom of the Parables

One of the keys to understanding the parable of the wheat and tares (Matthew 13) is to understand the time frame. Jesus is speaking in pictures and symbols about some period of history, but which? What’s the beginning, and what’s the end of the parable? Is Jesus talking about what…

by Peter LeithartNovember 25, 2013
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Literature

Machiavellian Politics and the Idol Ceremony

Shakespeare wrote two tetrologies of English history, patriotically celebrating the Tudor monarchy by recounting its chaotic prehistory. Read in chronological order, Shakespeare’s English histories trace the depressing collapse of medieval politics, from the ineffectual but dignified medieval kingdom of Richard II, through the usurpation of Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV,…

by Peter LeithartNovember 20, 2013
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Biblical Theology

Restoring the Office of Woman in the Church, (Part 3)

The Heart of Liturgy What we call sacrament, the food-aspect of worship, is essential here. Biblically, sanctuary worship, or worship in the heavenlies, is always a “marriage supper,” always sacramental. The Papal Church made the Eucharist into a private act largely separated from the community of the church. Protestant churches…

by James B. JordanNovember 18, 2013

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Born of the Spirit

Alan Kerr ( The Temple of Jesus’ Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John (Library of New Testament Studies) , 71) offers this comment on Jesus’ statement that Nicodemus had to be born of the Spirit before entering the kingdom: “It is almost universally accepted that Spirit here…

January 3, 2013

Jesus, Moses, Sinai, John

In his 1993 Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue (Library of New Testament Studies) (79-82), Craig A. Evans lays out five parallels between the account of Moses’ intercession at Sinai (Exodus 33-34) and the latter part of the Johannine prologue (1:14-18): First, the general…

January 3, 2013
Uncategorized

Fascism and Communism

At the TLS web site , John Gray reviews Vladimir Tismaneanu’s The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century . Among other things, Gray highlights the continuities between Communism and Fascism. Soviet Russia disenfranchised “former people,” a designation that, according to Tismaneanu implied that they…

January 3, 2013
Uncategorized

Perils of Natural Law

In a paper delivered at Princeton in 2012, Jennifer Herdt examines internal shifts in Reformed understandings of natural law enabled a merger between Reformed natural law thinking and “the modern natural law enterprise of the secular science of human nature.” The shift is several-fold. Calvin affirmed that human beings have…

January 3, 2013

Temple Eclipsed

Given the prominence of temple Christology in the New Testament, we’d expect to find it developed among the church fathers and medieval theologians. Athanasius develops Christology from this angle (Letter 60). The Arians, he says, “approve the former people [the Jews] for the honor paid by them to the Temple,…

January 3, 2013
Science

Falling Batman

The Economist is handing out year-end awards for wacky science, one of which goes to the team that published a paper on the trajectory of a falling Batman last summer. The Economist summarizes the findings, which are not encouraging for future Batmen: “if Batman jumped off a 150-metre-tall structure he…

January 2, 2013

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