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Writing

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

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The Lady and Her Jewels: An Epiphany Meditation

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery (Revelation 12:1-2). Then Joshua spoke…

by Richard BledsoeJanuary 6, 2015
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Anointing

Fattening Our Suffering

In his post asking Ought we Anoint the Dying? Peter Leithart makes an excellent and important point about our suffering as members of Christ. However, he only parenthetically mentions that the verb in question in James 5 is not chrio but aleipho . By assuming that these words are interchangeable,…

by Robert MaddoxDecember 30, 2014
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James

Death as Frenemy

We spend a lot of time in the church talking about what it means to live like a Christian. But what does it mean to die like a Christian? If we are to follow Christ in life, what does it mean for us to follow him in death as well?…

by Rich LuskDecember 23, 2014
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Literature

Was Shakespeare A Christian?

How would one go about answering the question posed by my title? That depends on what the question means. Obviously, different definitions of the question would require different approaches to an answer. Right off hand, I can think of at least three possible — though not necessarily mutually exclusive —…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 23, 2014
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American Culture

Phobophobia

In recent weeks and months, we have seen events that are not the event. The drama around these events is not the events themselves, but the anxiety about the events, and then even the anxiety about the anxiety about the events. That is the real event. The events in Ferguson,…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 22, 2014
anointing-david
Anointing

Ought We Anoint the Dying?

Anointing the sick, including the dying, is one of the traditional seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. The Reformers denied that the rite qualified as a sacrament. Formally, this was because anointing did not have a direct authorization from Jesus; more theologically, it was not one of the marks that…

by Peter LeithartDecember 18, 2014

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Peripheral Modernity

T racing the pre-history of European modernity that started with the Cartesian cogito , Enrique Dussel ( Underside of Modernity , 135-6) calls attention to the role of European exploration and conquest in the Americas. Modernity doesn’t begin with Descartes, but with the European discovery of the new world. From…

November 4, 2016
History

Among the Mournful Historians

T here were many Dick Turpins, writes James Sharpe in his study of the mythical English highwayman. There was “the son of John and Mary Turpin, born in Essex in 1705, who was a butcher by trade, drifted into crime, became a notorious highwayman, and was eventually executed at York…

November 4, 2016

Improvization

B ruce Ellis Benson ( Improvisation of Musical Dialogue ) doesn’t think that “the binary schema of ‘composing’ and ‘performing,’ which goes along with the construal of music making as being primarily about the production and reproduction of musical works” describes “what musicians actually do.” In place of the binary…

November 4, 2016

Celebrating the Reformation

I n his elegant study of Reformation commemorations ( Remembering the Reformation ), Thomas Albert Howard notes that the first centenary of the 95 Theses started out as an ecumenical effort. Elector Friedrich V of the Rhineland Palatinate hoped to “reduce tensions between Lutheran and Calvinist members” of the Protestant…

November 4, 2016

Reformation of Theological Writing

T he Reformation was highly improbably, writes Andrew Pettegree in his lively, vivid Brand Luther : “that a monk who into his thirtieth year had published nothing, and who shared the conventional education of other churchmen, should somehow reinvent himself as a writer and polemicist of astonishing power.” More, “in…

November 4, 2016

The Ark's Ascension

T he Chronicler’s account of David bringing the ark of the covenant to Zion takes up several chapters of 1 Chronicles. Chapters 13-15 describe two ark processions, and chapter 16 describes the organization of the ark tent and its worship in Jerusalem. The first section, chapters 13-15, is chiastically organized:…

November 3, 2016

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