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Apostle Paul

Paul Among the People

We've all heard it, too often to count. The Apostle Paul was a misgynistic homophobic pro-slavery authoritarian, probably a repressed homosexual himself, the first Puritan - Puritan here defined as "someone who cannot sleep if someone in the world is having fun." To call this a caricature is too generous.…

by Peter LeithartAugust 28, 2018
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How to Worship

Psalms for Exile: The Narrative Progression in the Fifth Book of the Psalter

Some of our forefathers believed in reading/singing the psalms in order. Today, when the psalms are even used at all, they tend to be used randomly, though sometimes tied to a church calendar or to the pastor’s sermon. The Bible does not bind us to any particular practice, but there…

by James B. JordanAugust 23, 2018
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1 Corinthians

The Rock That Followed Them

". . . and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul’s passing comment about the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness has often been treated as a bit of…

by Peter LeithartAugust 21, 2018
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Biblical Theology

Hezekiah’s Sign

The story of Hezekiah’s illness and recovery is familiar to every child who has attended Sunday School. Informed that he would die, faithful King Hezekiah pleaded in tears for a longer life. God heard his prayers and saw his tears, and promised fifteen more years. As a sign that He…

by Peter LeithartAugust 16, 2018
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Movies

The Last Man: Herod and Jesus in “Sunshine”

When viewed as an allegory of biblical history, the controversial third act of Danny Boyle’s gripping sci-fi adventure is transformed from an illogical divergence into a blinding revelation. The following analysis contains spoilers for the movie “Sunshine.” The Creation Week is the elementary type that orders everything God has said…

by Mike BullAugust 14, 2018
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Epistemology

Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World: Integration…and Things

In my last post , I told you the story of my current desire to understand philosopher D.C. Schindler’s metaphysical work. With this post, I start in to the venture. I begin by reflecting on what it is to be a thing. This matter always makes me laugh, and makes…

by Esther Lightcap MeekAugust 9, 2018

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God of Metaphysics?

Toward the end of a chapter on divine simplicity in his Engaging the Doctrine of Creation , Matthew Levering favorably quotes the following what Oliva Blanchette: "Metaphysics,more than anything else in philosophy, has to do with the question of transcendence, especially the kind of transcendence that is presupposed in properly…

February 16, 2018

Zombie Movies

The topic here isn’t movies about zombies. It’s the use of dead actors in movies. Alexi Sargeant explains why digital resurrection is so creepy, using Peter Cushing’s reprise of the role of Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One as the key example. Sargeant isn’t put off by the use of…

February 15, 2018

Spirit of Segregation

The Azusa Street Revival that launched the Pentecostal movement was accompanied by a burst of racial reconciliation. An Anglican visitors marveled: "It was something very extraordinary, that white pastors from the South were eagerly prepared to go to Los Angeles to the Negroes, to have fellowship with them and to…

February 15, 2018
Lent

Time for Hunger

After His baptism, Jesus went into the wilderness to fast and to be tempted by the devil for forty days and nights. The first temptation concerned food. Jesus was the new Adam, facing a food test not in a garden but in the wilderness. Jesus was the new Israel, hungering…

February 14, 2018
American Politics

Apocalypse Now?

All around us, pundits have turned prophetic; analysts have become purveyors of apocalypse. Trump the beast is on the throne, and the world is falling apart. Rusty Reno thinks that reports of the world's end are greatly exaggerated: "We observe a growing divide between reality and rhetoric. Stock markets rise;…

February 13, 2018

Notes Toward a Pauline Theology of Music

O ne Corinthians 13-14 includes a cluster of musical metaphors. Paul compares the tongue-speaking of the loveless as a “noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (13:1), and insists that tongues need interpretation by noting that you can't know the tune without distinct tones (14:6-8). A few notes on what Paul's…

February 13, 2018

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