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Biblical Horizons

A Visionary Liturgy, Part 1

In the 48th year, the third month, and the fourteenth night, while I slept in my bed, I was taken in vision to Xanadu and set upon a high hill. Looking to the west, I saw a large building, surrounded with gardens and fountains, walks and gravestones, and a bell…

by James B. JordanJanuary 4, 1998
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Advent

Celebrating a Calvinist Christmas with a Clear Conscience: Is the Holiday Un-Presbyterian?

‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others) 1 claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to the high holiday to pretend…

by Mark HorneDecember 15, 1997
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Biblical Horizons

The Case Against Western Civilization, Part 2

Part 2: The Enoch Factor Back in Open Book 21 we discussed "The Enoch Factor." Because that was several years ago (May 1994) and many people have begun reading this letter since that time, we shall return to the subject here and expand what we wrote at that time. After…

by James B. JordanDecember 4, 1997
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Biblical Studies

The Sequence of Events in the Creation Week, Part 3

Day 6. The sixth day provides the creation of land animals and of humanity. As we saw above, the second day spills over to the first half of the third day, for only at that point did God say that it was good. Similarly, it seems that the fifth day…

by James B. JordanDecember 4, 1997
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Biblical Horizons

Repoliticizing Jesus

During the past two decades, the "quest of the historical Jesus" has entered a new phase. The first incarnation of the quest was rudely shaken by the publication of Albert Schweitzer’s classic Quest of the Historical Jesus , easily the most devastating and funniest work of New Testament scholarship ever…

by Peter LeithartNovember 27, 1997
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Biblical Horizons

Sovereignty and Self-Gift

At the 1997 Biblical Horizons Summer Conference, the Rev. Jeffrey Meyers presented a series of remarkable lectures on the gospel of Mark. Among his many insightful comments, he suggested that the second gospel continues where the first gospel ends; Matthew ends with Jesus saying "Go" (Matthew 28:19), and Mark’s shows…

by Peter LeithartNovember 27, 1997

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The Contradictions of Trumpism

I n a scathing essay Trump and his New Nationalist supporters, Daniel Krauthammer observes that Trump defines national “greatness” as “winning”: “That was what his whole campaign was based on. His language is never about political ideals; it is about defeating opponents, being better than the other guy— win ,…

May 12, 2017

Justice Without Just Judges

J ustice does not, David Hume argued, arise from judges with a rigorous concern for equity. It arises, like other social goods, from the mysterious harmonization of self-interested actions: “as the self-love of one person is naturally contrary to that of another, these several interested passions are obliged to adjust…

May 12, 2017

Can We Perceive a Chair?

N ear the beginning of Value in Capitalist Society , Paul Cobben is explaining Marx's use of Hegelian themes and turns of argument when he summarizes Hegel's notion of Perception, a level of knowing beyond “Sense Certainty.” Cobben writes: Perception does not assume to have immediate knowledge of objective reality.…

May 12, 2017

Palms in the Wilderness

S olomon is a builder. The verb banah (build) is used 31 times in the Chronicler's account of Solomon, mostly with reference to the construction of the temple. Chapter 8, though, uses the verb 8 times, mainly to refer to building projects other than the temple. After twenty years of…

May 12, 2017

Prayer Power

O liver O'Donovan takes note of the power of the church's prophetic word. That's sexy. It's not so sexy to be reminded that “the church's speech is also prayer, speech addressed to God, from whom it originated, from the whole body on behalf of each charism in it” ( Desire…

May 12, 2017

Little Latin, Less Greek

R ummaging around John McGuckin's magisterial, encyclopedic, and very big history of the first millennium of Christianity, The Path of Christianity , uncovers some delightfully unexpected treasures. In chapter 7, he examines the reasons for the focus on Greek and Latin Christianity, and laments that “the non-Greek and non-Latin Christianities…

May 12, 2017

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