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Writing

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

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Christendom

The Fundamentals of the Faith

Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…

by Jackson WatersNovember 26, 2025
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Matthew

Testimonium Negativum: Josephus, Matthew’s Gospel, and New Evidence for the Coming Christ

1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…

by Jonathan SedlakNovember 18, 2025
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Genesis

Trauma and Glory: Overcoming Suffering with Joseph

Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…

by Lindsey TollefsonNovember 11, 2025
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Uncategorized

Lips like a Thread of Crimson: Midrash on a Theme from the Song of Solomon

The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…

by Mark BriansNovember 4, 2025
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Culture

The Rule of the Incarnate

This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…

by Ronald DodsonOctober 31, 2025
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Deuteronomy

A Father’s Liturgical Logic: The Pastoral Aim of the Davidic Revolution

In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 29, 2025
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Literature

Protestant Poetics

In the aforementioned article, Rosendale points to Philip Sidney as one who “translated the logic of sacramental representation to the worldly sphere of the literary. His Defense of Poesy posits a particularly close relationship between figurality and truth, and positions poetic representation as a peculiarly sensitive site of synthetic access…

August 21, 2006

Political and Sacramental Theology

There is a continuity between sacramental and political theology in the medieval world. Alternatively, we might go so far as to say that political theology is a subset of sacramental theology. As Timothy Rosendale says in a magnificent recent article (in Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity), for medieval kings…

August 21, 2006
Literature

Hamlet the Recusant

Those who search for alternative authors for the plays of Shakespeare invariably offer alternative interpretations of the plays. Oxfordians scour the plays and sonnets for veiled allusions to the life of Edward de Vere. Well, as they say, two can play this game: John Freeman, in the aforementioned article, claims…

August 21, 2006
Literature

Shakespeare the Catholic?

There has been recent discussion concerning the possibility that Shakespeare was a recusant Catholic. The evidence is circumstantial, but intriguing. John Freeman’s contribution to Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England (Fordham, 2003), summarizes the evidence. One piece of evidence concerns his father’s “spiritual will and testament,”…

August 21, 2006

Sermon Outline

INTRODUCTION Prayer is not a monologue, but always a response to God’s prior word, the second leg of a conversation. Faithful prayer speaks back to God as He has spoken to us; faithful prayer prays according to God’s will. THE TEXT “I am the true vine, and My Father is…

August 21, 2006

Truth in act

John tells his readers in his first epistle, “Children, do not love verbally nor by tongue, but in work and truth” (1 Jn 3:18). Truth here is not only not a quality of words and speech, but is being opposed to words and speech. To love in truth is not…

August 21, 2006

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