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

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Ascension

On the Ascension of the Lord

Leo the Great's second sermon on the Ascension, Sermon 74 . I. The mystery of our salvation, dearly-beloved, which the Creator of the universe valued at the price of His blood, has now been carried out under conditions of humiliation from the day of His bodily birth to the end…

by TheopolisMay 25, 2017
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Ecclesiology

Church on the Cross

Life, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy says, is suffering, battle, pain, shock, failure, elation. Human beings are always torn, always riven. Much of human life, individually and col­lectively, is an effort to deal with suffering and death. By being the first Man, Jesus establishes the possibility of a different stance toward suffering and…

by Peter LeithartMay 23, 2017
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Baptism

Baptism Impasse: Baptists vs. Presbyterians (Part 1)

Is Christian baptism given to believers only or to believers and their children? That’s the question that must be answered—but only if you’re Baptist or Presbyterian. That’s how the question is framed between these two denominations in this dispute, and it’s along these lines the debate unfolds as each side…

by Mani MarprelateMay 18, 2017
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Political Theology

Philanthropic God

Again and again the liturgy of St Chrysostom calls God a lover of mankind. He is Philanthropolos Theos (man-loving God), Kurios Philanthropolos (man-loving Lord), Philopsychos (lover of the soul). Philanthropy wasn’t a Christian invention. Roman benefactors gave benefits to subordinates. What was new was the shape of philanthropy, for the…

by Peter LeithartMay 16, 2017
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Marriage

Marriage and Betrayal

Perhaps the most fearful of all possibilities in the world is the possibility of betrayal on the part of someone who is in a “position of trust.” This, unfortunately, is the first block in what ought to be the foundation of every marriage in the world. Every woman has a…

by Richard BledsoeMay 11, 2017
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City

Church in the Metropolis

It seems that denominationalism has had its day. A 2009 Barna survey found that denominational commitments have gone squishy in mainline Protestant churches, and Evangelicals don’t fare much better than the rest. After a similar survey, Ron Sellers of Ellison Research said that Protestants are as “loyal to their denominations…

by Peter LeithartMay 9, 2017

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Dialectic of Physics

Jason Josephson-Storm ( Myth of Disenchantment ) offers this potted history of modern physics: "Even as Descartes liberated an autonomous realm for the thinking subject, his mechanism denied action at a distance and rejected the concept of the void. But this form of corpuscular mechanism was disrupted by Newton's emphasis…

May 4, 2018

People Without History

"The habit of treating named entities such as Iroquois, Greece, Persia, or the United States as fixed entities opposed to one another by stable internal architecture and external boundaries interferes with our ability to understand their mutual encounter and confrontation," writes Eric Wolf in Europe and the People Without History…

May 4, 2018
Masculinity

Pretense of Masculinity

"Human life is radical, constituent insecurity," writes Julian Marias ( Metaphysical Anthropology ). "It consists in having to do something, in a frequently hostile, always problematical, and largely latent circumstance, and in not knowing what to hold to. This is man's condition: his insecurity, his neediness, his ignorance, his indecision,…

May 4, 2018

What Is Disenchantment?

Jason Josephson-Storm tells us what Weber's disenchantment is not : It doesn't mean that magic is eliminated. Protestants "were against magic and superstitious rituals" but they never doubted the reality of magic or the crowdedness of the universe ( Myth of Disenchantment , 280). Disenchantment also "is not a new…

May 4, 2018

Greek Temple Architecture

Mary Emerson's Greek Sanctuaries and Temple Architecture is a concise, informative introduction to her topic. After introductory chapters explaining the meaning, uses, architecture and artistic adornments of sanctuaries in the Greek world, Emerson devotes a chapter to the major cultic sites of Greece - Delphi, Athens, the sanctuary of Apollo…

May 4, 2018

Abstraction and Image

In his recently published Lewis on the Christian Life , Joe Rigney devotes a few pages to expounding Lewis's understanding of the relation between abstract theological statements and the images of Scripture. He endorses the abstractions as a caution against false inferences that might be drawn from the images, but…

May 3, 2018

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