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

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The Lady and Her Jewels: An Epiphany Meditation

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery (Revelation 12:1-2). Then Joshua spoke…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 6, 2015
extreme-unction
Anointing

Fattening Our Suffering

In his post asking Ought we Anoint the Dying? Peter Leithart makes an excellent and important point about our suffering as members of Christ. However, he only parenthetically mentions that the verb in question in James 5 is not chrio but aleipho . By assuming that these words are interchangeable,…

by Robert MaddoxDecember 30, 2014
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James

Death as Frenemy

We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death as well?…

by Rich LuskDecember 23, 2014
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Literature

Was Shakespeare A Christian?

How would one go about answering the question posed by my title? That depends on what the question means. Obviously, different definitions of the question would require different approaches to an answer. Right off hand, I can think of at least three possible — though not necessarily mutually exclusive —…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 23, 2014
day-2-ferguson-protests-nationwide
American Culture

Phobophobia

In recent weeks and months, we have seen events that are not the event. The drama around these events is not the events themselves, but the anxiety about the events, and then even the anxiety about the anxiety about the events. That is the real event. The events in Ferguson,…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 22, 2014
anointing-david
Anointing

Ought We Anoint the Dying?

Anointing the sick, including the dying, is one of the traditional seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Reformers denied that the rite qualified as a sacrament. Formally, this was because anointing did not have a direct authorization from Jesus; more theologically, it was not one of the marks that…

by Peter LeithartDecember 18, 2014

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Literature

The Dancing Dead

A Swiss visitor to London in 1599 saw a performance of Julius Caesar, and wrote: “On September 21st after lunch, about two o’clock, I and my party crossed the water, and there in the house with the thatched roof witnessed an excellent performance of the tragedy of the first Emperor…

May 27, 2006

Philip the Chancellor

According to Stephen Duffy, Philip, Chancellor of the University of Paris, was responsible for elaborating the theorem of the supernatural. He claims that during the Pelagian controversy Augustine had left various problems hanging: “How can one be bound to do something not in one’s power? Can the virtues of unbelievers…

May 27, 2006

Surnaturel

In his 1993 book, The Dynamics of Grace , Stephen J. Duffy offers a superb brief summary of de Lubac’s thesis in Surnaturel . According to de Lubac’s history, “Neither the Fathers nor the great schoolmen ever considered a purely natural human destiny a possibility. Their focus was on one,…

May 25, 2006

Raunch Culture Revisited

On NPR this morning, Frank Deford described how, instead of bringing feminine modesty and delicacy to the world of sports as Title IX advocates might have hoped, women athletes have adopted the culture of their male counterparts. Recent hazing incidents have brought attention to a much more extensive problem. On…

May 24, 2006

Natural/Supernatural in Adamic Covenant

Mark Karlberg charges that Francis Junius introduced a natural/supernatural scheme into the Reformed doctrine of the covenant of works. In Karlberg’s summary, “The covenant, according to Junius, was established with our first parents by God the Father in the love of his Son. It held out the promise of supernatural…

May 24, 2006

Double Adamic Covenant

Many of the Protestant Scholastics argued that a covenant of some sort is “natural” to man, not a “supernatural” addition to a pure, non-covenantal existence. But the “natural” covenant is often distinguished from the specific terms of the covenant of works, the prohibition of the tree of knowledge. Heidegger fulsomely…

May 23, 2006

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