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Art

The Second Word V: On Images and Art, Part 3

The Failure of the Church Yet a third factor played an important role in this historical development, in addition to the imperial adoption of icons and the rise of the icons of the holy man. Brown writes: "The great Christian basilicas of the previous centuries tended to stand empty, except…

by James B. JordanSeptember 4, 1998
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Biblical Horizons

Patriarchal Dominion

The three large patriarchal narratives of Genesis concern the three aspects of the cosmos: matter, space, and time. Over these three is man given dominion. Lucifer was originally appointed to train man in this dominion, but he chose to lead man into rebellion instead. Thus, the Angel of Yahweh replaced…

by James B. JordanAugust 4, 1998
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Biblical Horizons

The Case Against Western Civilization, Part 6

Part 6: Living in a Dying World (continued) The "Trivium" (continued) The five stages of education are simply the five stages of the covenant as God administers it in human life and history, and in the liturgy of covenant renewal: First, God announces Himself. "I am Yahweh Your God." He…

by James B. JordanAugust 4, 1998
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Biblical Studies

Re-creation in the Ascension Offering

The following essay is tentative and exploratory, offered for your consideration. It seems to me that the ritual of the Ascension Offering (incorrectly translated as Burnt Offering) of Leviticus 1 is a symbolic recapitulation of Genesis 1, which thereby portrays the sacrificial ritual as way of moving from a fallen…

by James B. JordanJuly 4, 1998
Biblical Horizons

The Framework Hypothesis: A Gnostic Heresy

Just as the vast majority of evangelical Christians in America today are Arminian and Baptist, so the vast majority do not believe in a creation around 4000 BC. I don’t expect any of these three situations to change anytime soon. Powerful presuppositions are at work in all three instances, along…

by James B. JordanJuly 4, 1998
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Art

The Second Word V: On Images and Art, Part 2

The Iconoclastic Controversy Continuing Pagan Influence How did images creep in? To begin with, there was in the post-Constantinian Church a concerted effort on the part of the semi-pagans to interpret Christianity in essentially pantheistic terms. The heretics put God and man on a continuum of "being," so that God…

by James B. JordanJuly 4, 1998

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History

Revolutionary timing

Are we living in a time of world-revolutionary change? Impossible to say, of course, but there might be some hints contained in the developments of the last millennium. Rosenstock-Huessy notes that Western man has been formed by periodic world-historical revolutions since the 11th century: Gregorian (11th), the Reformation (16th), Puritan…

December 29, 2006
History

One world

William Cavanaugh suggests that globalization represents a false catholicity, a unification of the human race organized around consumption and Hollywood blockbusters. That’s certainly one legitimate angle. On the other hand: The wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous, and Cain and Nimrod built cities long before David…

December 29, 2006
History

Fallen Soldiers

George L. Mosse’s Fallen Soldiers (Oxford 1990) is a fascinating study of the “Myth of War Experience” that developed between the French Revolution and came to a climax in World War I and its aftermath. Mosse develops a number of intertwined themes: the rise of volunteer armies after the French…

December 29, 2006

Childbirth

Rosenstock-Huessy notes the difference between animal birth and human childbirth, the main difference being that human parents remain with children after the birth: “marriage means to go from the blind act of the moment, through the whole life cycle to its most opposite point the childbirth,” and this shows “that…

December 29, 2006
History

Naming and nationalism

With nationalism at its height in the nineteenth century, the common practice of giving children biblical names was a check on nationalist idolatry, a reminder that the child was part of Christendom, not merely of France, Germany, England, etc. Rosenstock-Huessy puts the point dramatically: “When biblical names disappeared in Europe…

December 29, 2006
Science

Scientific law

In their Science & Grace (Crossway 2006), Tim Morris and Don Petcher helpfully define a law of nature as “God’s sustaining of, or man’s description of, that pattern of regularity that we observe in nature as God works out His purposes towards His own ends in HIs covenant faithfulness, through…

December 28, 2006

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