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Writing

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

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Art

The Artist's Litany

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8) O God the Father, creator of heaven and earth, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, who inspired Creation with the breath of your nostrils, who placed Adam in the…

by Christian LeithartFebruary 2, 2016
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American Culture

American Sodom

For nearly a half-century, Sodom has been a key symbol in the American culture wars. On the one side, we have an aggressive movement among homosexuals that has first decriminalized homosexual conduct, then to force cultural and legal recognition of homosexuals as a minority and to normalize homosexual behaviors, finally…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 28, 2016
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Biblical Theology

The Meaning of the Mount of Olives

Speaking of the Church, Romans 11:16-17 says, "And if the root be holy, the branches are also. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the…

by James B. JordanJanuary 26, 2016
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Isaiah

No Sabbath for God

At the end of Isaiah 61, Yahweh's Servant rejoices because the Lord clothes Him with salvation and righteousness. He decks Him like a bridegroom with a garland on His head. He wears jewels like a bride. He is a new bridegroom in a new garden of Eden, a garden of…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 21, 2016
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Biblical Law

Approaching the Torah

Before anything else, a word about “Torah” may be in order. I have been persuaded that “law” is a bad translation of “Torah,” even though it is evident that what is called “Torah” does have commandments, statutes, and ordinances in abundance. Why not “law?” “Law” as a translation for “Torah”…

by Ralph Allan SmithJanuary 19, 2016
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Biblical Horizons

Jane Austen, Pundit

Few novelists seem as innocent of the temptation to punditry as Jane Austen. Though living through a period that witnessed the birth of an independent United States, the French Revolution and the Terror, the Napoleonic wars and the rise of revolutionary romanticism, and the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution, she…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 14, 2016

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Philosophy

Preserving Subjectivity?

In a TLS exchange with Timothy Williamson on the uses of philosophy, Roger Scruton argues that philosophy's task is to preserve humanity's humanity, the subjectivity that sets us apart from the rest of the world. Philosophy mans the boundaries between objective science and humanism, especially aesthetics. Scruton writes that the…

November 3, 2017

Janus-Faced Play

Rosenstock-Huessy begins his sociology with a lengthy discussion of the spaces of play. His premise is that "in play, it transpires that we anticipate the experiences of real life." A little girl marries her boy doll to her girl doll. A boy enacts a battle with his toy soldiers (47).…

November 3, 2017

Sociology of Suffering

Rosenstock-Huessy scoffs at the notion of presuppositionless sociology ( Sociology , vol. 1, 26). In a moving tribute to the life and work of Saint Simon, he argues that, on the contrary, "Everything known to sociology is known only because suffering is a fundamental fact. From the very first, her…

November 3, 2017

Race in Suburbicon American

Anthony Lane doesn't much like George Clooney's 1950s black comedy, Suburbicon . One of the story-lines focuses on the Mayerses, a black family, who move into the Suborbicon neighborhood. All hell breaks loose: "The mailman is astounded. The street is appalled. The whole community is in an uproar, and, before…

November 3, 2017

Promise and Act

In the early years of Joash, the house of David hangs by a thread (2 Chronicles 23). Its entire future rests in a baby, Joash son of Ahaziah, whom Jehoiada the priest rescues from Athaliah’s slaughter to be raised among the priests. By every empirical measure, the Davidic dynasty is…

November 3, 2017
Reformation

Wittenberg Under the Ban

Charlotte Methuen's TLS review essay of recent books on the Reformation is the best one-stop summary of recent scholarship I've seen during this season of Ref500 commemorations. In the recent biographies of Luther, you can find Luther the medieval mystic (Volker Leppin), Luther the angry, lonely rebel (Lyndal Roper), Luther…

November 3, 2017

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