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Sacramental Theology

The Gospel According to the Sacraments, (Part 1)

My first title for this series of posts was “Evangelical Sacramental Ecumenism” – not exactly a clickbait title. But those three words, evangelical, sacramental, and ecumenical, say a lot: The centrality of the gospel; a focus on baptism, bread, and wine; and the quest for visible unity among diverse churches.…

by Michael SpalioneDecember 12, 2017
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Baptism

Baptism and Contextualization, (Part 1)

I can imagine someone reading the title of this essay and saying to himself, "I have two questions. First, what in the world is “contextualization”?" Second, even before hearing the answer to the first question, he may wonder, "what does baptism have to do with such an awkward and vague…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 7, 2017
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Deuteronomy

Law of the Rebellious Son

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 My colleague Ralph Smith has recently written on this passage, here . I entirely agree with Ralph's thrust, which is typological, that the passage is ultimately aimed at the entire nation of Israel itself as the rebellious son. But what I am thinking is from another perspective, perhaps…

by Richard BledsoeDecember 5, 2017
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Baptism

Like A Dove (Part 2)

In the previous article in this series, I drew attention to the threefold meaning of the Spirit of God descending as a dove on Jesus at His baptism. On a related note, I also argued that 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Titus 3:3-7 were parallel passages that addressed the same issues…

by Ralph Allan SmithNovember 30, 2017
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Politics

What’s in a Flag?

The National Anthem protest is misguided. So too the conservative backlash. The Church’s response has been disappointing. I address each in turn. The greatest triumph of the American Civil Rights Movement was its seizing of the moral high ground in American politics. It did so by insisting only on those…

by A. K. ShaukuNovember 28, 2017
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Baptism

Like a Dove

Peter Leithart’s book, The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism , argues that baptism is parallel to and the fulfillment of the old covenant rite of priestly ordination. But this is not something explicitly stated in the New Testament. Why, then, should we believe it? Leithart shows in…

by Ralph Allan SmithNovember 23, 2017

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Erotic Trinity

Desmond suggests that when Hegel defines God as love, he has in mind God as erotic love, and God specifically as needy erotic love: “For Hegel . . . the movement up and the movement down seem not to be two different movements, but two expressions of a singular movement…

November 28, 2007

Can Hegel Count to Two?

In a brilliant chapter of his book on Hegel’s God, William Desmond asks whether Hegel can count to two. He wonders if Hegel is capable of accounting “for the true otherness of creation as temporal and not as eternal?” More, “Let God’s self-movement be eternal, but the self-becoming in time…

November 28, 2007

Hegel’s Trinity

In his book on the Trinity in German Thought, Samuel Powell gives a remarkably lucid summary of Hegel’s Trinitarian theology. A few of his major points: 1) Hegel worked out his position as a way between the Enlightenment and pietism, focusing on the question of whether and how we can…

November 28, 2007

Hegel’s Trinity

In his book on the Trinity in German Thought, Samuel Powell gives a remarkably lucid summary of Hegel’s Trinitarian theology. A few of his major points: 1) Hegel worked out his position as a way between the Enlightenment and pietism, focusing on the question of whether and how we can…

November 28, 2007
Science

Stem cells

The news actually broke this summer, when Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka announced that he had found a technique to transform cultured mouse skin cells into cells nearly identical to embryonic stem cells. As Nature magazine pointed out, if something similar works in humans, a simple skin biopsy could be used…

November 28, 2007
Philosophy

Marion and the gift

In his discussions of gifts, Marion takes both Heidegger and Derrida as interlocutor. In dialogue with Heidegger, he wants to show that the reduction that Heidegger performs does not necessarily reveal Being as the final horizon; he wants to argue that the reduction reveals givenness as the ultimate horizon instead.…

November 28, 2007

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