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abortion
Abortion

Letters on Abortion, (Part 1)

What is below is fairly self-explanatory. This is an exchange I had with a local liberal clergyman on the subject of abortion. The circumstances of the debate are included in the text itself. I initially e-mailed this out to a list of clergy in our city after a local (and…

by Richard BledsoeNovember 17, 2015
wall-2
Ezra

The Perfumed Butler and the Wisdom of Civil Obedience

The seemingly humdrum parts of the Bible often hide overlooked wisdom. Take, for example, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Their stories aren't exactly the most gripping or memorable. They are far less concrete than, say, the story of the Exodus. No one in Ezra is stricken blind or devoured…

by Christian LeithartNovember 10, 2015
sparkler
Happiness

"Happy! Happy! Happy!" Authentic Happiness and Its Knock-Offs

For most of the past century, philosophical perspectives on life in the western world have been overtly grim and pessimistic. The optimism of the Enlightenment, generated by confidence in the scientific method and the potential of an increasingly civilized humanity to redress the evils of the world, was shattered by…

by Bill DeJongNovember 5, 2015
aaron-burden-1ebsmyrau-s-unsplash
Hermeneutics

How Does a Chiasm Mean?

Chiastic structures are found all over the Bible, and in recent decades commentators have become more adept at spotting them. But identifying these literary structures is only part of the challenge. There remains the challenge of understanding what they mean. Part of the answer is found in the recognition that…

by Steve JefferyNovember 3, 2015
last-supper
Eucharist

How To Change the World, (Part 2)

Part 1 can be found HERE . Clearly, more than just getting worship right is important in changing the world, but since worship is the central act of God’s people, performed on the first day of the week at the center of the world before the very face of God,…

by James B. JordanOctober 29, 2015
solomonsidolatry
Biblical Theology

Big Love: A History of Stolen Fruit

“Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed.” ( Luke 11:27 ) Arguing for Christian morality in a secular society is difficult. A culture which accepts evolutionary dogma has no intellectual place — or inherent desire — for absolute morality, since it believes morality…

by Mike BullOctober 27, 2015

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Theology

Hauerwas on “Radical Democracy”

Stanley Hauerwas gave an interesting paper offering a Christian defense of “Radical Democracy.” He covered some of the work of John Howard Yoder, who on Hauerwas’ reading is by no means politically quietist, albeit he is a pacifist. The most interesting portion of the lecture, though, was Hauerwas’ summary of…

November 25, 2004
Theology

Hauerwas on “Radical Democracy”

Stanley Hauerwas gave an interesting paper offering a Christian defense of “Radical Democracy.” He covered some of the work of John Howard Yoder, who on Hauerwas’ reading is by no means politically quietist, albeit he is a pacifist. The most interesting portion of the lecture, though, was Hauerwas’ summary of…

November 25, 2004

Sermon Outline, First Sunday in Advent

INTRODUCTION Advent (the word means ?coming?E focuses our attention on the incarnation of the Son of God, but the incarnation of the Son of God not only tells us about the Son. The Son became incarnate so that He could reveal God to us, all of God, Father, Son and…

November 25, 2004

Placing the Name

Sandra Richter gave a very stimulating paper on the use of the phrase “place my name there” in Deuteronomy. Her main concern was to argue that the “place where my name dwells” in Dt 12 is fulfilled within Dt in chapter 27, with the ceremony of covenant-renewal at Mount Ebal.…

November 23, 2004
Biblical Studies

De Lubac and the Bible

There were a few interesting insights from the session on de Lubac and biblical interpretation at SBL this morning. Margaret Adam of Duke presented a comparative study of Frei and de Lubac, arguing that Frei’s notion of a “stretchy literal sense” does not do justice to the complexity of Scripture,…

November 21, 2004
Theology

RO, Augustine, and Borders

Hans Boersma offered an interesting critique of the notion of “borders” in Radical Orthodoxy and some of its fellow travelers, especially concerning their relationship to Augustine’s conception of the city of God. The two terms of his analysis were “ontology of peace” and “oppositional logic,” and he argued that these…

November 21, 2004

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