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Writing

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

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Coronavirus

Does Corona Compassion Kill?

The corona virus hit Western society like a Biblical plague — almost. Biblical plagues were actually much more devastating. Still, as Peter Leithart describes the present situation, it is a judgment from God, because the disease itself together with our political solutions brought about a social situation that fits Deuteronomy’s…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 26, 2020
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Theology

Is Theology Useless?

“The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?” - Richard Dawkins One cannot be a Christian college president or seminary trustee (your essayist is both) without wondering if Richard Dawkins’s notorious take-down of theology…

by Alexander WhitakerMay 19, 2020
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How to Worship

How Should Churches Respond to One Another?

Nearly every church that I am aware of has adopted differing practices since the recent virus scare began. Some churches continued to meet during the state lock downs, and other churches left their building empty, meeting online through various video conference technologies. Some churches have gone back to life as…

by Jonah BarnesMay 12, 2020
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Fear

Fear

Fear is an inseparable companion of human life. We are afraid of illness and death, poverty and cataclysms, rejection and betrayal, failure and shame. We are afraid of the unknown, so in a sense we are afraid of the future and life itself. Unless we live in the illusory belief…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 5, 2020
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Heresy

The Blessing of “Heresies”

In the title above, I put the word “heresies” in quotation marks because I would prefer that the word “heresy” be confined to erroneous beliefs about the Trinity and the Person of Christ, rather than be used broadly to describe any view that might be considered an error. 1 At…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 30, 2020
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Fear

On Coping (or not) with a Crisis

I’ve been trying to work out why I’m feeling existentially disconnected from CoV-19-related fears. I’m taking it seriously, but it’s not registering in any deeply personal way. Partly it’s that my routines are largely undisrupted. But as I reflect on people’s reactions I think there’s more, because a lot of…

by Matthew MasonApril 28, 2020

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Jesus’ flesh

Ephesians 5 of course draws an analogy between marriage and Christ’s relation to His church: Husband:wife::Christ:Church Verse 29, though, puts it differently. With Genesis 2’s phrase “one flesh” in view, Paul says that “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does…

March 28, 2007

Jesus’ flesh

Ephesians 5 of course draws an analogy between marriage and Christ’s relation to His church: Husband:wife::Christ:Church Verse 29, though, puts it differently. With Genesis 2’s phrase “one flesh” in view, Paul says that “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does…

March 28, 2007

Interpretive communities

In his homilies on Ezekiel, Gregory the Great admitted that he frequently learned as he taught: “I know that very often I understand things in the sacred writings when I am with my brethren, which, when alone, I could not understand . . . .Clearly, as this understanding is given…

March 28, 2007

Sleep-reading

In a letter to Pope Damasus, Jerome writes, “In your eyes to read without also writing is to sleep.”

March 28, 2007

Notes on Psalm 118

More or less random notes on Psalm 118. 1) The Psalm has an interesting, clumpy, arrangement. It begins and ends with the identical exhortation to “give thanks to Yahweh, for He is good, for everlasting his lovingkindness” (vv. 1, 29). The opening four verses are linked with the repetition of…

March 28, 2007
Literature

Communal Judgment, Communal Argument

William Deresiewicz of Columbia wrote a 1997 article in an issue of English Literary History that illuminates the issues in Pride and Prejudice very nicely. He starts at the beginning: Unlike other novels, Austen opens Pride and Prejudice not with the name and circumstances of the heroine, but with an…

March 28, 2007

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