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Writing

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

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Coronavirus

Does Corona Compassion Kill?

The corona virus hit Western society like a Biblical plague — almost. Biblical plagues were actually much more devastating. Still, as Peter Leithart describes the present situation, it is a judgment from God, because the disease itself together with our political solutions brought about a social situation that fits Deuteronomy’s…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 26, 2020
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Theology

Is Theology Useless?

“The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that ‘theology’ is a subject at all?” - Richard Dawkins One cannot be a Christian college president or seminary trustee (your essayist is both) without wondering if Richard Dawkins’s notorious take-down of theology…

by Alexander WhitakerMay 19, 2020
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How to Worship

How Should Churches Respond to One Another?

Nearly every church that I am aware of has adopted differing practices since the recent virus scare began. Some churches continued to meet during the state lock downs, and other churches left their building empty, meeting online through various video conference technologies. Some churches have gone back to life as…

by Jonah BarnesMay 12, 2020
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Fear

Fear

Fear is an inseparable companion of human life. We are afraid of illness and death, poverty and cataclysms, rejection and betrayal, failure and shame. We are afraid of the unknown, so in a sense we are afraid of the future and life itself. Unless we live in the illusory belief…

by Bogumil JarmulakMay 5, 2020
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Heresy

The Blessing of “Heresies”

In the title above, I put the word “heresies” in quotation marks because I would prefer that the word “heresy” be confined to erroneous beliefs about the Trinity and the Person of Christ, rather than be used broadly to describe any view that might be considered an error. 1 At…

by Ralph Allan SmithApril 30, 2020
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Fear

On Coping (or not) with a Crisis

I’ve been trying to work out why I’m feeling existentially disconnected from CoV-19-related fears. I’m taking it seriously, but it’s not registering in any deeply personal way. Partly it’s that my routines are largely undisrupted. But as I reflect on people’s reactions I think there’s more, because a lot of…

by Matthew MasonApril 28, 2020

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Literature

Wilder the Critic

Robert Gottleib reviews Penelope Niven’s Thornton Wilder: A Life in the January 7 issue of The New Yorker . The most interesting bits are selections from Wilder the epistolary literary and cultural critic. There’s this from a 1937 letter talking about the Astaire-Rogers film Swing Time , which Wilder saw…

December 31, 2012

Heroic Hobbits?

At the Real Clear Religion web site, Jeffrey Weiss nails the problem with Peter Jackson’s rendition of Tolkein. Summing up the climax of the Lord of the Rings , Weiss writes: “In book and film, Frodo has heroically carried the Ring to the one spot where it can be destroyed.…

December 30, 2012

Eucharistic meditation

Matthew 7: What man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your…

December 30, 2012

Exhortation

“Unless you are converted and become like little children, you cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” Jesus says. To enter His kingdom, we must be needy, eager, dependent, watching the world with wonder. Jesus fills His kingdom with children. But the world and our own flesh makes it difficult to…

December 30, 2012
Literature

Father of the Man

When Lear subjects himself to his daughters, his Fool remarks that he might has well pull down his britches and let his daughters whip him. He is no longer acting like a father; he has become a child in the hands of Goneril and Regan. At the end of the…

December 30, 2012

Trinity House: Matthew Levering Says…

I first discovered Peter Leithart’s writings in the pages of Pro Ecclesia and First Things . Even his earliest writings are striking for their creative engagement with the Christian tradition and for their superb rhetorical power. When I turned to his books, I found a sacramental and political theologian for…

December 29, 2012

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