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Church Calendar

Five Misconceptions of Reformation Day

For many people the date October 31 is significant not only for being the Eve of All Saints (All Hallows Eve, Halloween) but as the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. These theses were a list of…

by Timothy LeCroyOctober 31, 2017
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Church Calendar

Concerning Halloween

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter. "Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint,"…

by James B. JordanOctober 26, 2017
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Revelation

Preaching, An Art of Division

The following is an excerpt from Peter Leithart's forthcoming two-volume commentary on Revelation (T&T Clark). Y ou must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings,” a voice tells John (Rev. 10:11). Then someone gives him a “reed like a rod” and instructs him to measure (11:1).…

by Peter LeithartOctober 24, 2017
josiah-death

Back To Egypt

Josiah is an ideal Davidic king in many ways. He not only “did right,” but he “walked in the ways of his father David” and “did not turn aside to the right or to the left” (2 Chronicles 34:2). At the age of 16, he began to seek Yahweh, and…

by Peter LeithartOctober 19, 2017
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Augustine

Augustine and the Music of Time

One of the best discussions of Augustine’s views on time comes from Jeremy Begbie’s Theology, Music, and Time (ch. 3). Following Paul Ricoeur, Begbie claims that Augustine’s distentio “is conceived as the three-fold present, and the threefold present as distentio . The distentio consists in the non-coincidence of the mind’s…

by Peter LeithartOctober 17, 2017
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How to Worship

The Psalter Should be Woven into the Fabric of Worship

This has always been the position of the Christian Church, and from an historical perspective the present situation in evangelicalism is appalling. The early liturgies of the Church, which are still used in Episcopal and Lutheran worship, are laced with psalm phrases. The early hymns, such as the Te Deum…

by James B. JordanOctober 12, 2017

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Felix Culpa

I ngrid D. Rowland reviews several shows and books focusing on the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch (born Jheronimus van Aken ), celebrating this the 500th anniversary of his birth. Rowland notes that “Bosch’s grandfather and grandmother enrolled as members of the Brotherhood of Our Lady, the local religious confraternity. Ever…

August 19, 2016

Consider the Fig

B en Crair wants us to appreciate the fig as more than “a geriatric delicacy or the sticky stuff inside bad cookies.” Figs are “awesome: enclosed flowers that bloom modestly inward, unlike the flamboyant showoffs on other plants. Bite a fig in half and you’ll discover a core of tiny…

August 19, 2016

Blinding Wealth

I n his Anchor Bible commentary on Revelation (102-3), Craig Koester summarizes the book's warnings about wealth. On the one hand, “wealth makes people ‘blind’”(Rev 3 :17 ). The charge can be correlated with Babylon’s arrogant inability to see the destructive consequences of its actions (18 : 7 –8 ).…

August 19, 2016

Iran's Nukes

I n one of man jaw-dropping reminders in America's War for the Greater Middle East , Andrew Bacevich notes the origin of Iran's nuclear programs, so much and so controversially in the news of late: During Nixon's Presidency, while the Shah ruled Iran, “U.S. arms exports to Iran sky-rocketed. Between…

August 19, 2016

Making Nature More Natural

N athaniel Rich reviews the Library of America edition of the works of Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park, inventor of landscape gardening, inspirer of the national park system. Rich discerns an “unmistakable irony” in Olmsted's theory of landscape: “It takes a lot of artifice to create convincing ‘natural'…

August 19, 2016

Binge Drinking

C aitlin Flanagan offers a characteristically searching analysis of the roots of our binge drinking academic, tracing it to a new mode of parenting that she describes as “Get-Real Parenting.” But she recognizes that it has a deeper source than parenting style: The hollowness at the center of their lives—the…

August 19, 2016

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