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

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Epistemology

A Cheer for the Mystics

Mystical theologians are often unguarded, extreme, un-nuanced, pressing to the edges of heresy, sometimes beyond. Still, the mystics are worthy of study. Why? Many reasons. Unlike some late medieval and post-Reformation dogmaticians, mystical theologians are often instinctively and richly Trinitarian. Historical-critical approaches to Scripture left mystical theologians virtually untouched; mystics…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 2, 2013
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Literature

Shadow and Substance in Shakespeare's Venice

Portia of Belmont is a “lady richly left,” as Bassanio says of her in the first Act of The Merchant of Venice . Plus, she’s beautiful and wise. Suitors clamber to Belmont in hope. Her father knew it would be so, and in his will set up a fairy-tale test…

by Peter LeithartAugust 28, 2013
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Liturgy

Liturgy Traps

[fve]http://vimeo.com/72195198[/fve]

by James B. JordanAugust 26, 2013
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Deuteronomy

Victory Food

In the nature of the case, “the” Christian meditation on Deuteronomy 14:1-21 cannot be written. Meditation offers too many possibilities, opens too many doors. There is not one and only one correct set of associations for a Christian to consider when thinking of Deuteronomy 14:1-21. We could, for example, consider…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 21, 2013
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Romans

David's Sin and Israel's Salvation, Part I

Having retold the story of the cumulative sin of Israel leading to the great atonement on the cross, Paul then reemphasizes that, just as both Jew and Gentiles were locked into sin and judgment, now they are both justified by faith: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.…

by Mark HorneAugust 20, 2013
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Deuteronomy

You are what you eat

Deuteronomy 14 is full of allusions to events of Israel’s history and other portions of Scripture. What would an Israelite learn by mediation on these allusions? The answer, I believe, is at least fourfold. Faith, Worship, War For the ancient Israelite first hearing Moses’ sermon, or perhaps hearing it read…

by Ralph Allan SmithAugust 15, 2013

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History

Feminism’s prehistory

In France, women have played a prominent political role through their involvement with the salons. To rise in society, one needed to please the women who served as guardians of the salons; and to rise politically one needed to rise in society. England, by contrast, was a nation of men’s…

January 13, 2007
History

Feminism’s prehistory

In France, women have played a prominent political role through their involvement with the salons. To rise in society, one needed to please the women who served as guardians of the salons; and to rise politically one needed to rise in society. England, by contrast, was a nation of men’s…

January 13, 2007
History

Chiastic history

Hobbes called it a “circular motion of the sovereign power,” but what he actually described in summarizing the Revolutionary-Restoration sequence was a chiasm: “it moved from King Charles I to the Long Parliament; from thence to the Rump; from the Rump to Oliver Cromwell; and thence back again from Richard…

January 13, 2007

Anonymous MPs

The House of Commons, Rosenstock-Huessy argues, is a body, not a collection of individual units. MPs do not have, as US Representatives and Senators do, individual desks; there is only one table in Commons. And up to the time that Rosenstock-Huessy was writing, MPs were never addressed by name in…

January 13, 2007
History

Restorations and Rebellions

Cromwell and his co-belligerents claimed to be aiming for the restoration of English liberties; they did not consider themselves rebels. Yet, in much English historiography, the Puritan Revolution goes down as the “Great Rebellion,” the term “restoration” having been snagged by the Stuarts who returned in 1660. Significantly, as Rosenstock-Huessy…

January 13, 2007

Old England

Rosenstock-Huessy points out the contrast between French and English attitudes toward “old” things. Quoting on Boutmy, he says, “’ Ancien regime or ‘old France’ is objectionable in France; ‘Old England’ is a eulogy.” He adds, “To have a ‘high old time’ is as reasonable in English as it is atrocious…

January 13, 2007

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