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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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Art

Anxiety of influence

RG Collingwood has a whale of a time excoriating individualistic conceptions of art.  He recognizes a theological motif behind the post-romantic notion of the isolated artistic genius: “Individualism conceives a man as if he were God, a self-contained and self-sufficient creative power whose only task is to be himself and…

September 18, 2009

Triune concreteness

Hegel writes that the Trinity enables Christianity and especially Christian art to attain a concreteness impossible in Judaism and Islam: “When we state . . . of God thathe is simple One, the Supreme Being as such, we have thereby merely given utterance to a lifeless abstraction of the traditional…

September 18, 2009

Proverbs 27:12-18

PROVERBS 27:12 As we have seen repeatedly in our study of Proverbs, wisdom is a kind of foresight, an ability to foretell the future, an ability to see down the road. The prudent or “crafty” ( arum ) man can see the evil ahead and does what he needs to…

September 18, 2009

Medieval economics

Henri Pirenne, in his Economic and Social History of medieval Europe, describes the regulation of economic life in medieval towns during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Pirenne is admittedly old news, and perhaps more recent studies have corrected some of his claims. The town government had two main aims: “publicity…

September 17, 2009
Economics

Bad Samaritans

Ha-Joon Chang argues in Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism that highly developed economies impose unfair and hypocritical demands on developing economies.  In particular, the nations that control the international trade and monetary agencies require that developing economies open their markets to imports,…

September 17, 2009

Byzantine economics

A discussion this morning concerning the economic impact of the gospel got me to thinking about Byzantium.  What kind of economic system did the Eastern Christian empire, with its centralized state and luxurious capital, have? I found some help in Angeliki Laiou and Cecile Morrison’s The Byzantine Economy.  I include some…

September 17, 2009

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