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Writing

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

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Baptism

Analogies to Baptism

Every attempt to understand the Christian sacraments makes use of comparisons or analogies with other rituals, events, or customs. Calvin and those who followed him, for example, spoke of the sacraments as “seals,” and compared them to the “seal of approval” that an official impresses on a document. Thinking about…

by Peter LeithartMay 29, 1998
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Art

The Second Word V: On Images and Art, Part 1

Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy has pointed out in his essay "Hitler and Israel, or On Prayer" (available for $2.00 from Biblical Horizons ) that it is God’s word "No!" that establishes in a culture the distinction between the Creator and the creature. The Bible repeatedly says "No!" to every human attempt to…

by James B. JordanMay 4, 1998
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Biblical Horizons

Gattaca

If you missed Gattaca at the movie theaters, you can probably check it out from your local video store now. And you should. This is one of those relatively rare thought-provoking movies that can stand being watched with brain in gear more than once. It is also poetic, sensitive, visually…

by James B. JordanApril 4, 1998
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American Culture

The Case Against Western Civilization, Part 4

Part 4: The Nephilim Factor Western Civilization partakes of what I call "the Nephilim Factor." The Enoch Factor means that the pagans get there first. This is both a blessing and a danger. As a blessing, it means that they work out techniques of dominion over the lower creation that…

by James B. JordanApril 4, 1998
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Biblical Horizons

A Visionary Liturgy, Part 2

The Worship Service Then the one speaking with me took me by the hair and lifted me into the air in the middle of the great room. And as I watched, I saw people entering the room to the sound of the great bells outside. Then entered from all four…

by James B. JordanMarch 4, 1998
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American Culture

The Case Against Western Civilization, Part 3

Part 3: Philosophy (continued) If we realize that human beings are the images of God, and that man hates God, then we realize that all non-Christian political philosophy is founded on a fundamental hatred of other human beings, a hatred manifest in contempt. Rome, like Enoch, was founded on the…

by James B. JordanFebruary 4, 1998

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The Sentence

Bernard Malamud said, “The sentence as object - treat it like a piece of sculpture.”

December 28, 2007
History

Protestants and Catholics

Benjamin Kaplan’s recent Divided by Faith reveals (in the words of the Economist reviewer) that “there was more religious freedom in the 16th century than after the wars of religion ended a century later. The author tells of the widespread use of Auslauf , whereby Protestants were able to worship…

December 28, 2007

Bhutto’s death

In a Stratfor report on terrorism in 2008, distributed on December 19, Fred Burton and Scott Stewart predict: “Just over the border from Afghanistan, Pakistan has witnessed the rapid spread of Talibanization. As a result, Islamabad now is fighting a jihadist insurgency of its own in the Federally Administered Tribal…

December 28, 2007

Bhutto’s death

In a Stratfor report on terrorism in 2008, distributed on December 19, Fred Burton and Scott Stewart predict: “Just over the border from Afghanistan, Pakistan has witnessed the rapid spread of Talibanization. As a result, Islamabad now is fighting a jihadist insurgency of its own in the Federally Administered Tribal…

December 28, 2007
History

Doors

Malidoma Patrice Some writes that in the African village where he grew up “houses do not have doors that can be locked. They have entrances. The absence of doors is not a sign of technological deprivation but an indication of the state of mind the community is in. The open…

December 27, 2007
History

McDonaldization

McDonald’s is one of the emblems of the bogeyman, globalization. In an essay on McDonald’s in Moscow, Melissa L. Caldwell complicates this picture in a number of ways. In a number of ways, “McDonald’s has been more fully domesticated” and thus has “lost its distinctiveness as something alien and visible…

December 27, 2007

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