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

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Protestantism

More Anti-Catholic Than Thou

The “second Reformation” introduced Reformed liturgy and teaching into Lutheran Germany. This was seen by some as a continuation of the Reformation and a purgation of Catholic remnants. The effort to carry on “further reformation” led to disputes with Lutherans. As Bodo Nischan has put it, the hottest debate in…

by Peter LeithartMarch 28, 2017
bilbo
Literature

Bilbo: A Reformation Hero?

In J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century , Tom Shippey observes that Bilbo is a member of the middle class, a bourgeois. Bilbo does not have any servants, but his hole is “the home of a member of the Victorian upper-middle class of Tolkien’s nineteenth-century youth, full of…

by Bogumil JarmulakMarch 23, 2017
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Isaiah

God In the Dock

Idolatry has deprived Israel of her senses. This was one of the early messages to Isaiah (Isaiah 6). Yahweh sent him out to a people who had been deprived of their senses because of their commitment to idols. They become like the idols they serve. They still have eyes, but…

by Peter LeithartMarch 21, 2017
jesus-baptism
Trinity

Triune Personhood

In the current climate of Trinitarian discussion concerning personhood, it's good to reach back to David Bentley Hart's treatment of the subject in his wonderful Beauty of the Infinite . Hart addresses the dangers of misreading Rahner’s rule, namely, the danger of dissolving the ontological Trinity into the economic. In…

by Peter LeithartMarch 16, 2017
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Certificate Program

Chris Kou Completes the Certificate Program

Chris Kou is the oldest son of Chinese immigrants. Chris and his brothers run a branding and marketing business, Imagineering, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. In his spare time, he takes online courses from Reformed Theological Seminary, and aspires to be a pastor. Chris is also one of our…

by Peter LeithartMarch 15, 2017
church-monet
Architecture

House of Living Stones

The following was delivered as the Solemn Charge and Exhortation to Theopolis students beginning the Easter term course on Architecture and Liturgical Space . As we will be reminded repeatedly throughout the week, the Bible has a lot to say about building and buildings. Long stretches of Exodus, Kings, Chronicles,…

by Peter LeithartMarch 14, 2017

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Old School on sacraments

In his fine recent biography of John Williamson Nevin, DG Hart notes that the Old School Presbyterians failed to express “the mediated character of grace and of the church’s centrality in dispensing the blessings of the gospel” as clearly as Nevin himself. He attributes this failure not to the influence…

October 25, 2005
Theology

Puritans and mediation

Mark Noll makes the following important distinction between the Puritans and later evangelicals: “Although Puritans stood against Catholic and Anglican formalism, salvation for the Puritans was still mediated by institutions - family, church, covenanted society; in evangelicalism (at least in American forms), salvation was in principle unmediated except by the…

October 25, 2005
Theology

On Women Theologians

In an intriguing book published some years ago, historian David Noble described the origins of modern science among medieval monks and friars who lived in what Noble called “a world without women.” Though the book promoted every trendy academic fad existing in 1992 and was rife with contradictions (women are…

October 24, 2005

Sermon outline, October 30

INTRODUCTION All cultures draw lines between who is “inside” and who is “outside,” and between different classes of people within the culture. Cultures lift some people up “high” and consider some people “low.” The gospel confounds the boundaries of all worldly cultures, and redraws the lines between those who are…

October 24, 2005

Eucharistic meditation, October 23

Isaiah 25:6-8: And the Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of wine, choice pieces with marrow, and refined, aged wine. And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is…

October 23, 2005

Exhortation, October 23

Unlike our Bibles, which follow the order of the Septuagint, the Hebrew Bible ends with 2 Chronicles. The last word of the Hebrew Bible is the decree of Cyrus to the exiles of Jerusalem: “Let him go up.” The gospel of Matthew likewise ends with a command to “Go.” The…

October 23, 2005

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