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American Politics

How To Change the Supreme Court

Appalling as it is, the decision of the United States Supreme Court regarding marriage cannot come as much of a surprise to reformation minded Christians. At the same time, this event is a warning from which we might learn. It is parallel to the attack of AIDS in the homosexual…

by James B. JordanJuly 8, 2015
putin
Europe

Gay West and Straight East?

Should we trust Vladimir Putin, we could come to believe that the West is a gay paradise whereas Russia strongly defends traditional and even Christian morality. Similar conclusion could be drawn from polls, which say that the European Union and America are the parts of the world where the acceptance…

by Bogumil JarmulakJuly 7, 2015
street
City

Jane Jacobs: The Jane Austen of Economics

In 1974, Steven Goldberg published one of the books that radical feminists have since assiduously tried not to remember has ever been published: The Inevitability of Patriarchy . As David Gutmann said in a Commentary review: “Goldberg’s virtues as a scholar and a logician are formidable. . . .[He is]…

by Richard BledsoeJuly 7, 2015
stonewall
American Culture

A Pastoral Letter from Louisville

Since Friday’s SCOTUS decision in Obergefell v. Hodges , social media have been inundated with rainbows, tweets, quips, and essays both celebrating and decrying our new culture that has been officially codified in these United States. With a strong LGBT community in our city, we, no doubt, will see a…

by Bill SmithJuly 6, 2015
moses
Biblical Law

The Death Penalty in the Mosaic Law

During the course of recent debates among Evangelicals concerning same-sex marriage, critics of the traditional Christian position that homosexual acts and desires are sinful and unnatural have often pointed to Leviticus 20:13, where "he who lies with a man as with a woman" is condemned to death. In the following…

by Peter LeithartJuly 3, 2015
david-goliath-2
Homosexuality

When Obergefell Falls

We are being taunted. The giant’s name is Obergefell ; he is a six-fingered descendent of the Anakim. He has come out onto the battlefield arrayed in his impressive armor. He wears the media elites like a helmet of brass, and on his chest, he wears the deep pockets of…

by Toby SumpterJuly 2, 2015

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Gift of Death

“Christian life is an impossible newness given as an unfitting gift,” writes John Barclay in his contribution to Apocalyptic Paul . Since it is a gift, the “new competence” of believers “is wholly dependent on the life of Christ, present within” (73-74). But it’s important to specify what that gift…

November 24, 2014

Why the Torah

In a 2007 essay reprinted in his Pauline Perspectives , NT Wright gives this tight and quite wonderful summary of what Paul says about the cross in Romans 5-8. He is correct about Paul and largely correct in his criticisms of traditional atonement theologies. He observes that the opening section…

November 24, 2014

Allegory and Atonement

Atonement theology has drawn heavily from Paul, also from the Passion narratives. In drawing on the Passion narratives, atonement theology often makes an allegorical transition from the specifics of the narrative to a more general narrative setting of “all humanity,” even a cosmic setting. Thus, when Jesus says He lays…

November 24, 2014

Barth on Distributive Justice

In a study of Barth and Hegel on liberation and atonement ( Christ Crucified in a Suffering World ), Nathan Hieb notes that Barth defends the traditional ascription of iustitia distributiva to God, the justice “by which God distinguishes between right and wrong human action and on this basis approves…

November 24, 2014

Anti-Satan

The flavor of this is somewhat too Girardian, but still an excellent statement of the Spirit’s anti-Satanic role from Mark Heim ( Saved from Sacrifice , 156): “Satan sows discord, flames the mimetic rivalries and animosities among persons that can blow up into social crisis, and then encourages the persecutory…

November 24, 2014

God the Monster

Everybody loves Jesus. Gandhi loves Jesus. The Dali Lama loves Jesus. Everybody thinks Jesus just the best. Not exactly everyone, because some thugs hated Him enough to kill Him. But now we see their error, and everybody loves Jesus. But many of those who love Jesus don’t believe He rose…

November 21, 2014

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