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

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Abortion

PROLIFISM: A New Humanism

There is nothing good Satan cannot pervert, and that fact extends to the Christian public witness against abortion just as it applies to everything else. As a Christian who has written, marched, and picketed against legalized abortion since 1970, I have been saddened to see the development of the anti-Christ…

by James B. JordanApril 6, 1994
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Biblical Chronology

The Chronology of the Pentateuch (Part 2)

(We are discussing the meaning of the phrase "cutting off of days" in Genesis 4:3, showing that it implies the turn of the year in autumn.) Two passages use the term "cutting off of years" to refer to the lunar year, beginning in the Spring. Exodus 12:41 – at the…

by James B. JordanApril 6, 1994
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Haggai

The Wealth of Nations

In the second year of Darius, near the end of the feast of booths, the prophet Haggai encouraged the Jews of the restoration to continue their work on the temple by assuring them that “the latter glory of this house will be greater than then former” (Hag. 2:9). To this…

by Peter LeithartApril 6, 1994
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Biblical Horizons

A Theology of Ritual: Mapping the Territory

G. K. Chesterton began Orthodoxy by describing the plot of a book that he had never written. Taking a page from Chesterton, below I will briefly map out the territory of a book (or books) that need(s) to be written. Had I but world enough and time–and a small army…

by Peter LeithartApril 5, 1994
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Deuteronomy

Israel and Other Gods

As long as Moses lived, Israel seldom worshipped other gods directly. She broke the First Word by breaking the Second, worshipping God through the calf. As we shall see, God always treats such Liturgical Idolatry as Covenantal Idolatry, but it is far more serious because it is committed by those…

by James B. JordanApril 5, 1994
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Biblical Studies

The Holy City Revisited

In response to my article, " The Holy City " (in Biblical Horizons 55) James B. Jordan has made several suggestions about how I might expand on the ideas presented there. Several other readers have also contributed their insights. Below, I trace a few sketchy lines of thought. 1. The…

by Peter LeithartMarch 23, 1994

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Easy Sainthood

Rowan Williams concludes a brief summary of the patristic debates about the double/single will of Jesus by saying “we are encouraged to see Jesus as fully aware of the general possibilities of human nature, including the possibilities of betrayal, cowardice, and self-gratification, aware of those as part of his composition…

May 17, 2016

Ministering Sacraments by Faith

For many Christians, sacraments are locked in a winner-take-all battle with faith. Are we reconciled to God by faith or by baptism? Do we feed on Christ by believing or by eating bread and drinking wine? When we place too much emphasis on sacraments, many believe, we run the risk…

May 17, 2016

Why Do We Want Houses?

Peter King begins his Private Dwelling by posing what he describes as simple, silly, obvious questions about housing: What is its use? Who needs it? What is housing for? Early on, he points to the “iconography” implied by our language about housing: “There is an iconography attached to housing that…

May 16, 2016

Sensitivity to Intrinsic Rightness

Charles Taylor's The Language Animal is a defense of HHH against HLC. That is, he thinks the linguistic perspective developed by Hamann, Herder, and Humboldt is superior to the rationalist and empiricist tradition of Hobbes, Locke, and Condillac. HLC “tried to understand language within the confines of the modern representational…

May 16, 2016

A Community of the Fearless

Monks fled. They did not flee from community or contact with others. They fled in order to become more deeply engaged with others in a more radical form of community. Rowan Williams writes ( Silence and Honey Cakes ), “What is learned in the desert is clearly not some individual…

May 16, 2016

Benjamin and Art's Disenchantment

Walter Benjamin had no totalizing philosophical system. He was an essayist, admits Ranier Rochlitz ( The Disenchantment of Art ). Rochlitz doesn't use the term to demean, however. Benjamin “is not an essayist in the manner of Montaigne; the scientific imperative is not lacking in his essays. He conducts concrete…

May 13, 2016

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