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Writing

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

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Art

Toward a Biblical Definition of Obscenity

My copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1976: not so new, really) defines obscene as (1) "disgusting to the senses; repulsive" and (2) "abhorrent to morality or virtue; specif: designed to incite lust or depravity." Definitions such as this serve a useful purpose only when there is agreement on what…

by Peter LeithartMay 30, 1991
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Biblical Studies

The Abomination of Desolation, Part 1

An Overview Here begins a series of studies in the Abomination of Desolation, or Desolating Sacrilege. This month and next I shall set out an overview of what I regard as the best interpretation of the phenomenon. Later essays will look at it in more detail. (The original form of…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Studies

Advice From a Sojourner, Part 12

29. There are three things that are stately in their march, Even four that are stately when they walk: 30. The lion is mighty among beasts And does not turn back before any, 31. The strutting cock, The male goat, And a king with his army around him. 32. If…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Studies

The Chronology of Ezra & Nehemiah, Part 4

We have seen that it is likely that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is the same as Darius the Great. If this solution be correct, and I think it is, possibly there is another problem in Ezra that can be resolved by it. In Ezra 4:6 we are told that "in…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Horizons

The Weight of Being

Czech novelist Milan Kundera, though hardly a household name in the English-speaking world, has achieved a certain notoriety in America in recent years, largely on the strength of the English translation and film version of his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 1 The Unbearable Lightness of Being — the…

by Peter LeithartMay 6, 1991
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Proverbs

Advice From a Sojourner, Part 11

24. Four things are small on the earth, But they are exceedingly wise; 25. The ants are not a strong folk, But they prepare their food in the summer; 26. The coneys are not a mighty folk, Yet they make their houses in the rocks; 27. The locusts have no…

by James B. JordanApril 22, 1991

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Nine lives?

Few people today work at the same job throughout their 40 or so years of working life, and many economists and sociologists have pondered the effects of this development. No doubt there is something lost. But there is also gain. Rosenstock-Huessy suggests that, due to technical efficiencies, doctors can stuff…

January 6, 2007
History

Resurrected texts

When the young Yves Congar visited Lutheran theologians and pastors in Germany in 1930, he learned that Lutheran perceptions of Catholicism were largely shaped by Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, of which Congar had never heard. Today, it would be impossible for a sophisticated theologian like Congar to reach his mid-20s without…

January 6, 2007
Philosophy

Peirce and signs

Menand offers a useful summary of Peirce’s views on signs, in a way that highlights both similarities and differences with Derrida. Peirce taught a notion of differance : “The meaning of a representation,” he wrote, “can be nothing but a representation. In fact, it is nothing but the representation itself…

January 5, 2007
Philosophy

Pragmatism

In his very readable The Metaphysical Club (2001), Louis Menand gives a number of pithy summaries of pragmatism, its sources, its varieties, and its fundamental beliefs. The common attitude or idea among pragmatists has been “an idea about ideas.” Whatever their differences, pragmatists “all believed that ideas are not ‘out…

January 5, 2007

Between, and child actors

Everyone lives between times, and is the intersection of past and future. Everyone is always already taught, and always anticipating or actually teaching and ruling. Rosenstock-Huessy writes, “‘He’ never exists, but is always between two times, two ages, as son and father, layman and expert, the end of one era…

January 5, 2007

Double Procession

No generation ought to be determined by the spirit of the sons. As a matter of simple fact, the world is never occupied by a single generation. For a generation to be healthy, the spirit of the sons must mingle with the spirit of the fathers. The Spirit must proceed…

January 5, 2007

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