Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Malachi Martin, The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion Between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev & the Capitalist West (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990). Reviewed by Peter J. Leithart. The subtitle of this massive volume gives a good idea of its major theme. Martin, the…
The Abomination of Desolation: PART 1 The Abomination of Desolation: PART 2 What I intend to do in this series of studies is this: First, in the present essay we shall survey the occurrences of the Abomination of Desolation in the Bible in a cursory way, in order to get…
We previously surveyed what is meant by the abomination of desolation . We suggested that it refers to sacrilegious acts performed by the religious leaders of Israel, captained by their High Priest, right in front of God’s face in the Temple. Later studies in this series will provide evidence for…
Throughout history, the Christian Church has had to guard against the heresy of gnosticism. Gnosticism is not an ordinary heresy, because it does not manifest itself as a set of defined beliefs. Rather, gnosticism is a tendency, a tendency to replace the historic facts of Christianity with philosophical ideas. Gnosticism…
In Rite Reasons Nos. 9-12, I discussed the errors of Roman Catholicism, Anglo-Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. I have had several requests to comment further on the so-called Seventh Ecumenical Council, held at Nicaea in A.D. 787. That Council ordered the excommunication of anyone who rejects the veneration of icons. 1…
The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…
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P aul begins his first letter to the Corinthians with a scathing denunciation of Corinthian factionalism. He poses several rhetorical questions: Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? And he brings us baptism: Into whose name were you baptized? Paul's? Peter's? Calvin's? Luther's? Baptism is a naming ceremony, and…
I t appears that the biblical text was composed according to preconceived models and patterns shaped by certain numbers that regulate the amount of words, sentences, and verses,” writes CJ Labuschagne in his Numerical Secrets of the Bible (1). Like music, “literary texts in biblical antiquity were composed and structurally…
O ne of the faults of discourses, argues Hobbes ( Leviathan , 1.8), occurs when “men speak such words as, put together, have in them no signification at all.” The words are spoken for different reasons: They “are fallen upon, by some, through misunderstanding of the words they have received…
M onastic flight, Rowan Williams emphasizes ( Silence and Honey Cakes ), wasn't “running away from responsibility or from relationships.” Rather, it is “about denying yourself the luxury of solving your problems by running away literally or physically from them . . . and about taking responsibility for your sins”…
T he problem with sacramental theology is that it's sacramental theology. That is, the problem is the abstraction of certain events, acts, objects, things from their surroundings and subjected to detailed scrutiny. To do sacramental theology, you have to isolate bread and wine from the sequence of liturgical actions that…
T M Luhrmann ( When God Talks Back ) wants to explain believers to contemporary unbelievers. How can orthodox believers withstand the pressures of the secular world and have what they can describe as a personal relationship with God? Luhrmann emphasizes that this experience doesn't come overnight: “Skeptics sometimes imagine…
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