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Sacramental Theology

The Gospel according to the Sacraments (Part 3): One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism

In the first post of this series, I proposed that the sacraments of baptism and communion are the nexus point for the evangelical and ecumenical movements. In the following post , I proposed a new orientation for ecumenism – a conciliarity of the cross – with the necessary confession of…

by Michael SpalioneJanuary 2, 2018
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Baptism

Christian Mission and Cultural Transformation

“Contextualization” is now, and has been for a long time, the buzzword for the day. 1 Missionary effort in non-Western countries is all about “contextualization” — making our communication of the Gospel, if not the Gospel itself, fit into the culture to whom we from the West speak. 2 There…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 28, 2017
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Sacramental Theology

The Gospel According to the Sacraments, Part 2

In my previous post , I highlighted the sacraments as the point of convergence between evangelicalism and ecumenism arguing that baptism and communion are presented in the New Testament as signs of the gospel that simultaneously enact and remember union with Christ and the unity of Christ’s body. I concluded…

by Michael SpalioneDecember 27, 2017
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Baptism

Baptism and Contextualization: Part 2

Click HERE for Part I of this series. What does baptism have to do with culture? As I said in the previous essay, the short answer is “everything!” To begin with, baptism is baptism into Jesus’ death (Romans 6:3). Paul explains this as the crucifixion of the “old man” (“old…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 21, 2017
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Advent

Twin Nativities

In the accounts of our Lord’s nativity and early childhood, so familiar to us from many years of Advent and Christmas services, we often fail to recognize in them the gentle intimations of a greater nativity that is yet to come. The attentive ear, however, can discover in these passages…

by Alastair RobertsDecember 19, 2017
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Advent

Daughters of Zion

Isaiah warns that Yahweh is coming to remove Judah’s leaders in every area of social, economic and political life so completely that there will be no one left to lead besides children (3:4) and women (v. 12). As Isaiah goes on, however, it becomes clear that the women of Judah…

by Peter LeithartDecember 14, 2017

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Philosophy

Ree on Realism

Jonathan Ree has this to say to the Platonic realist who is afraid of attacks on realism: “you’re worried about being deprived of something that actually you haven’t got, and you wouldn’t know if you had . . . . it’s a chimera, this thing that they’re worried about having…

October 28, 2003
Philosophy

Derrida on Plato’s Dualism

Derrida explains Plato’s dualism as an effort to dominate writing (and, I suppose, reality) by the imposition of organizing contrasts and differences. Words are ambiguous; pharmakon means remedy or poison. Rather than leave this ambiguity lie, and simply follow out the proliferating differences that flow from it, Plato organizes and…

October 28, 2003
Philosophy

Derrida on Plato’s Dualism

Derrida explains Plato’s dualism as an effort to dominate writing (and, I suppose, reality) by the imposition of organizing contrasts and differences. Words are ambiguous; pharmakon means remedy or poison. Rather than leave this ambiguity lie, and simply follow out the proliferating differences that flow from it, Plato organizes and…

October 28, 2003
Theology

Natural Theology

Alan Jacobs reviews Stanley Hauerwas’s Against the Grain of the Universe in the current issue of Books & Culture , and Hauerwas talks about Barth’s insight that natural theology can never be “first” theology: “Barth discovered early in his career that the great error of 19th-century Protestant theology was its…

October 27, 2003

Exhortation, October 26

Exhortation for October 26: We pray every week that God’s kingdom would come. This is a very general prayer, that God would extend His righteous rule to the ends of the earth. But since we live everywhere, our prayer that God’s kingdom would come is a focused prayer that His…

October 26, 2003

Sacred Cows

We speak of “sacred cows,” and think that we are using a dead and meaningless metaphor. But the “sacred” of “sacred cow” is very real. Lay a finger on the sacred rights of the individual to do anything he likes with his genitals, tread on the sacred ground of individual…

October 25, 2003

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