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Writing

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

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Pastoral Ministry

Rural Church Growth

I've pastored a very rural church for well over a decade. Our town has about 1,000 people and will never grow until Jesus returns. 38 people attend our worship on Sundays. Here's a quick list of what we’ve done to grow our church, and what I’ve done to survive pastorally.…

by TheopolisAugust 10, 2017
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Art

Letter to a Young Artist

Thanks for sharing so honestly about your current crisis of creativity. I totally understand and relate to that; it’s happened many times in my musical life thus far, and I’ve begun to accept it as a normal rhythm of the creative process. I actually went through a serious dry spell…

by Joel ClarksonAugust 8, 2017
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Biblical Theology

Stones and Fruit: Divination and Procreation – (Part 3)

The Broken Stones of Israel At Sinai, the tablets of the Law of Moses were broken and restored. The Old Testament is a history of “new covenants,” including that promised in Jeremiah and fulfilled in Zechariah. Ultimately, the vertical Oath and the horizontal Sanctions met in the death of Jesus…

by Mike BullAugust 3, 2017
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Isaiah

God's Market, the Church

Woe to the sinful nation. Woe to those who enlarge their estates and build their portfolios. Woe to the drunks. Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Woe to the proud who are wise in their own eyes. Woe to Congressmen who pass unjust laws and to…

by Peter LeithartAugust 1, 2017
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Romans

In the Flesh: Then and Now

The interpretation of Romans 7:7-25 is notoriously difficult. Good scholars disagree on many aspects of the passage, but the central interpretative difficulty concerns the identity of the “I.” Is Paul referring to himself? Is Paul referring to himself pre- or post-conversion? Does the “I” refer to Adam? Is the “I”…

by Bill SmithJuly 27, 2017
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How to Worship

The Minister's Uniform

You board the Metra train at Arlington Heights station one afternoon, heading to downtown Chicago for some sight-seeing. As the train departs from the station, a man in jeans, a striped t-shirt, and a Kansas City Royals baseball cap enters your train car, and begins asking to see each passenger’s…

by Jon HerrJuly 25, 2017

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History

Courtly love

A former student, Matt Dau, commented on reading David Bentley Hart’s description of postmodernism and the sublime that it seemed very similar to the courtly love tradition - the dominating attraction of one’s life is the inaccessible beauty of the beloved. Judging from Holsinger’s work, that analogy is no accident.…

July 22, 2006
History

Bataille and Danielou

Holsinger argues ( Premodern Condition ) that Bataille, despite writing a somme atheologique was not so much attacking or parodying Thomism as critiquing Thomas with resources taken from inside the medieval Catholic tradition. As an illustration of his “intellectual open-mindedness vis-a-vis the tradition of Catholic theology,” Holsinger cites the exchange…

July 22, 2006
Theology

Old and new Thomists

Bruce Holsinger gives this summary of the conflict between “traditional” Thomists and the advocates of nouvelle theologie during the early decades of the 20th century: “What infuriated . . . the [traditionalist] neo-Thomists about the nouvelle theologie was what they perceived as its historical relativism, which in turn derived from…

July 22, 2006

Jesus and Covenant of works

In what sense did Jesus fulfill the covenant of works? He is clearly the last Adam (Rom 6), and reverses the work of the first Adam. But unless we assume that Torah is a straightforward republication of the covenant of works, then any claims about Jesus fulfilling the covenant of…

July 20, 2006
Philosophy

Foucault the conservative

Foucault is normally classified as a radical postmodern, but there is a strong “conservative” thrust to his work on the prison and other “disciplinary” mechanisms of the early modern period. His attention is mainly on the social, architectural, and political mechanisms that break down traditional solidarities and thereby isolate individuals…

July 20, 2006
Politics

Architecture of control

One of the key themes of Foucault’s work is an effort to uncover the social conditions of modern individualism. He suggests that the idea that “the model of a society that has individuals as its constituent elements is borrowed from the abstract juridical forms of contract and exchange” is only…

July 18, 2006

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