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Writing

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

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Creation

Why Genesis Matters

Creationism is debated widely in the US, especially when it comes to teaching creation as an alternative theory of origins in public schools. Every few months, there’s another poll showing that many Americans still believe Ussher’s claim that the world was created around 4000 BC, which always elicits a contemptuous…

by Peter LeithartAugust 20, 2014
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Books

Canary in the Coal Shaft

Walker Percy died in 1990, but his six published novels and his collections of essays are more relevant than when he wrote them. Percy was an American Dostoevsky, and that was no accident. “The European novels,” he says in a 1974 interview, “are more philosophical, more novels of ideas.” Dostoevsky,…

by Peter LeithartAugust 18, 2014
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Children

Parenting in the Spirit

The Spirit is God’s agent for renewing the creation, for restoring bonds between nations, for knitting together people into the body of Christ. The Spirit is the renewer of the world, and the bond of all relations. That means that if you want your family to be knit together, if…

by Peter LeithartAugust 13, 2014
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Revelation

Hunter Into Prey

In their basic physical sense , the verbs translated as "persecute" in the Bible mean “chase” or “pursue,” and that fits the context quite naturally. As Pharaoh “pursued” (LXX, dioko ; Heb. radaph ) Israel into the wilderness, for example, so the dragon chases the woman back to her place…

by Peter LeithartAugust 11, 2014
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Books

Edwards Our Contemporary

Seng-Kong Tan’s Fullness Received and Returned is a densely argued, thoroughly researched, contextually sensitive study of participation in the soteriology of Jonathan Edwards. Along the way, Tan deals with many of the central themes in Edwards’s theology. As with many recent studies of Edwards, Tan’s monograph demonstrates both Edwards’s creativity…

by Peter LeithartAugust 6, 2014
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Art

Portrait of the Artist as Aesthetic Martyr

The title of James Joyce’s first novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man indicates that it is a bildungsroman , a story of formation that describes the formative experiences of a poet who aspires to artistic greatness. The education described is Joyce’s own. The novel recounts the failing…

by Peter LeithartAugust 4, 2014

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Rahab

Andrzej Toczyski's The "Geometrics" of the Rahab Story offers an insightful, multi-layered close reading of Joshua 2. His syntactical analysis of the chapter examines the features of the text that steer the reader's involvement in the story. His aim is to show how Joshua has been and is a "vehicle…

July 6, 2018

Crazy Talk on China

David Goldman is a conservative and a patriot, and is not given to hyperbole. But he describes the current US attitude toward Chinas a "xenophobic" and "ugly," and accuses fellow conservative Victor Davis Hanson of "crazy talk" about China. In response to Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods, "Chinese officials are…

July 5, 2018

Paul's Theology of Glory

Haley Goranson Jacob's Conformed to the Image of His Son is an exploration of Paul's theology of glory. Jacob's focus is on the meaning of the phrase in her title, drawn from Romans 8. She finds the several common interpretations of the phrase wanting: Conformity to the Son isn't physical…

July 3, 2018

Bloomsbury in a Secular Age

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed, Charles Taylor argues, the development of the "nova." At that time, "the alternatives open to unbelief are multiplied and enriched." After World War II, these options are diffused to the whole of Western societies, and this produces a "super-nova" ( A Secular…

July 2, 2018

Postmodern Times

In his contribution to The Future of Hope , John Milbank offers a description of postmodernity and suggests ways for the church to respond. Postmodernism may be a thing of the past; we're supposed to be in post-postmodernity nowadays. Still, much of what Milbank describes is still with us, and…

June 28, 2018

Empty Name

The Third Word assumes that we carry the Lord’s name. What it prohibits is bearing, carrying, or lifting that name “in vain” or “emptily.” The word can mean “false,” and bearing the name “falsely” is one of the sins that the Lord prohibits here. That does involve speech. This phrasing…

June 27, 2018

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