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Writing

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

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Epistemology

A Cheer for the Mystics

Mystical theologians are often unguarded, extreme, un-nuanced, pressing to the edges of heresy, sometimes beyond. Still, the mystics are worthy of study. Why? Many reasons. Unlike some late medieval and post-Reformation dogmaticians, mystical theologians are often instinctively and richly Trinitarian. Historical-critical approaches to Scripture left mystical theologians virtually untouched; mystics…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 2, 2013
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Literature

Shadow and Substance in Shakespeare's Venice

Portia of Belmont is a “lady richly left,” as Bassanio says of her in the first Act of The Merchant of Venice . Plus, she’s beautiful and wise. Suitors clamber to Belmont in hope. Her father knew it would be so, and in his will set up a fairy-tale test…

by Peter LeithartAugust 28, 2013
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Liturgy

Liturgy Traps

[fve]http://vimeo.com/72195198[/fve]

by James B. JordanAugust 26, 2013
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Deuteronomy

Victory Food

In the nature of the case, “the” Christian meditation on Deuteronomy 14:1-21 cannot be written. Meditation offers too many possibilities, opens too many doors. There is not one and only one correct set of associations for a Christian to consider when thinking of Deuteronomy 14:1-21. We could, for example, consider…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 21, 2013
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Romans

David's Sin and Israel's Salvation, Part I

Having retold the story of the cumulative sin of Israel leading to the great atonement on the cross, Paul then reemphasizes that, just as both Jew and Gentiles were locked into sin and judgment, now they are both justified by faith: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.…

by Mark HorneAugust 20, 2013
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Deuteronomy

You are what you eat

Deuteronomy 14 is full of allusions to events of Israel’s history and other portions of Scripture. What would an Israelite learn by mediation on these allusions? The answer, I believe, is at least fourfold. Faith, Worship, War For the ancient Israelite first hearing Moses’ sermon, or perhaps hearing it read…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 15, 2013

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American Pluralism

Kevin M. Schultz's contribution to Faith in the New Millennium is “The Blessings of American Pluralism, and Those Who Rail Against It.” The essay is partly a study of the history of Americans' reconciliation with American pluralism. He starts with Sonya Sotomayor's appoint to the Supreme Court. A Catholic, she…

November 20, 2015

Divine Liturgist

God speaks and light appear. He separates light and darkness, assigns names to each, and judges the whole to be good. Next day, He’s at it again, speaking, separating, assessing, judging. And so it goes throughout the days of creation: With an insistent, incantatory rhythm, God speaks, sees, names, judges.…

November 20, 2015

Incarnation in Exile

Ezekiel’s initial vision is of the Lord’s chariot-throne, coming with whirling wheels and a sound like thunder, to visit him at the River Chebar. Though the prophet is in exile, the glory of the God of the temple is with him. Robert Jenson ( Ezekiel ) highlights the “incarnational” force…

November 19, 2015

Baptized Education

The Christian school has to function as a fruit of the Christian church. That does not mean it has to be administratively connected to a church. But to be Christian it has to take the church’s ministry as its given starting point. Specifically, I have in mind the sacrament, rite,…

November 19, 2015

Rites of the Stadium

M odern sports are not simple competition between the two teams. If they were only about physical competition, games would be shorter, less glitzy, less energetic. Sports are ritualized events, liturgies. The crowd’s behavior is deliberately intensified with ritual elements – with mascots who emblem the team, with fight songs…

November 19, 2015

Amnesiac Modernity

A wonderful quotation from Paul Connerton's How Societies Remember , recently noted by Rod Dreher: “Under the conditions of modernity the celebration of recurrence can never be anything more than a compensatory strategy, because the principle of modernity itself denies the idea of life as a structure of celebrated recurrence.…

November 18, 2015

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