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Writing

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

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David, Goliath, and the Body of Moses, Part 1

In the Bible, all the world is a stage, but like the Tabernacle, that stage moves around a lot. David’s defeat of Goliath can only be fully understood as liturgy fulfilled in history. Liturgy, as a sacrifice of praise, is the step-by-step process of resolving a conflict. It relinquishes all…

by Mike BullAugust 22, 2019
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Aristotle

On Friendship

Aristotle isn’t fundamentally wrong about friendship, nor is the long tradition that follows him. But you might not gather that by reading some of the more pointed critics of the classical conception of friendship. I think, however, that the classical view is not only viable but taken up and fulfilled…

by Jack FranicevichAugust 20, 2019
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Epistemology

Integration: Putting the Pieces Together

#13 in Theopolis Papers, Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World It is time for me to “cast off” integration, the way a knitter removes a completed scarf from the needles. I want to bring my quest concerning integration to a decent closure, though my happy quest for reality continues. With…

by Esther Lightcap MeekAugust 13, 2019
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Revelation

Nebuchadnezzar’s Unfinished Symphony

Below are some notes on a particular sub-theme of Daniel 3, namely the downfall of Babylon’s liturgy. First up, a few words on our text’s literary construction. One of the most conspicuous features of Dan. 3 is its author’s love of lists . Personnel are listed (vs. 2, 3, 27),…

by James BejonAugust 6, 2019
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Prayer

Praying for God's Good Name

Few things in Scripture, few things in the Christian life, are more familiar than the Lord’s Prayer. Sunday after Sunday, we pray these words together with our brothers and sisters. At home, alone or with our families, we pray this prayer daily, as Jesus taught us (Luke 11:2: “When you…

by John BarachJuly 30, 2019
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Culture

The Head, the Heart, and the “Gay Christian” Movement

At the 2019 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, the denominational delegates considered a number of official overtures (requests for action from the regional parts of the denomination) relating to issues of gender and sexuality. The PCA is conservative. As evidence of this, the assembly passed a resolution…

by Jonathan BarlowJuly 23, 2019

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That Serpent the Devil

At the same SBL seminar, Rusty Reno examined Genesis 3:1, following the traditional interpretation that the serpent is a disguise for the devil. He dealt with the larger pattern of biblical evidence first, showing that the Bible links the devil and the serpent, and links the devil to acts of…

November 19, 2007

The First Sin

J. Richard Middleton gave an intriguing paper on Genesis 2-3 at an SBL seminar on the theological interpretation of Scripture. He was trying to answer the question of the nature of the first sin, and concluded that the first sin, which led to a proliferation of sin in succeeding generations,…

November 19, 2007
History

Celebrity

An article in the current issue of Sociological Theory explores the status-hierarchy created by celebrity, a kind of status ignored by Weber in his treatment of status in capitalist societies. The abstract says, “Max Weber’s fragmentary writings on social status suggest that differentiation on this basis should disappear as capitalism…

November 17, 2007
Politics

Obama’s faith

In the December issue of The Atlantic , Andrew Sullivan describes Barak Obama’s conversion. In an interview with Sullivan, Obama said, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values or ideals that were first instilled in my from my mother, who was,…

November 17, 2007
Politics

Obama’s faith

In the December issue of The Atlantic , Andrew Sullivan describes Barak Obama’s conversion. In an interview with Sullivan, Obama said, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values or ideals that were first instilled in my from my mother, who was,…

November 17, 2007
Literature

The Gaze

David Bevington points out in his performance history of Shakespeare that in both Measure for Measure and The Tempest , the villainous characters are those that attempt to elude the all-seeing surveillance of the Duke and Prospero. Villains are particularly villainous when they think they can do evil without detection.

November 17, 2007

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