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Writing

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

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Apostasy

Regeneration and Lettuce

My good friend, Jason Ewert, recently posted a review of Pastor Douglas Wilson’s book, Against the Church . Jason correctly notes that Pastor Wilson’s main pastoral motivation in writing this book is to combat dead orthodoxy. Dead orthodoxy is a real problem in Reformed churches that celebrate the primacy of…

by Garry VanderveenJuly 31, 2014
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Eucharist

Jesus Eats First

At the church I pastor, we have four servers who distribute the communion elements to the congregation, and I distribute the elements to those in the foyer and nursery. The servers and I do not partake of the bread and wine until the congregation is served first. As this has…

by Burke ShadeJuly 28, 2014
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Theopolis News

Church of the Present, Pastors of the Future

We at Trinity House believe that the church ought to raise and train her future pastors. Part of that training may be carried out by specialized institutions like Trinity House, but the church and her leaders are ultimately responsible for that training. To encourage churches to assume that responsibility, Trinity…

by Peter LeithartJuly 23, 2014
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Exodus

Mutilated Bodies

Sandra Jacobs's ​The Body as Property examines the role of physical disfigurement in the Hebrew Bible, with focus on the Torah, and more specifically on the (fictitious) Priestly document, P. After an introduction laying out a rationale for the comparative method that guides her research, she explores circumcision, the use…

by Peter LeithartJuly 23, 2014
Isaiah

Saving Judah

Yahweh saves. That’s what Isaiah’s name means, and that’s what Isaiah’s prophecy is about. Yah saves Judah when Aram and Israel pressure her. He saves Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege. He brings Judah back from the grave of Babylonian exile. But this triumphant message of Isaiah fizzles. The last few…

by Peter LeithartJuly 21, 2014
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Apostasy

Apostasy and Assurance

Are apostasy and assurance mutually exclusive? Some seem to think so. But let’s consider this a bit: No Reformed man would ever say that a man who is “saved” today will be safe forever no matter what . Rather we say, “your sins are forgiven, now, walk faithfully, glorify the…

by Steve WilkinsJuly 16, 2014

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Philosophy

Heidegger in his woods

Latour is tired of being accused of having forgotten Being, and offers this clever brush-off of Heidegger: “If, scorning empiricism, you opt out of the exact sciences, then the human sciences,, then traditional philosophy, then the sciences of language, and you hunker down in your forest - then you will…

November 15, 2006
History

Semi-modernism

Postmoderns, Latour suggests, think they are still modern, but in fact they have greatly oversimplified the modern Constitution. Postmoderns might emphasize the separation of subject and world, and stretch that opposition to a breaking point (Latour vividly describes them as doing the splits to keep subject and world apart); but…

November 15, 2006
History

Modern temporality

In his very good section on modern temporality, Latour argues that modernity assumes that everything in the present, modern moment, is purely modern, novel. Anything that appears that is not up-to-date is a “archaism,” and moderns worry constantly that this or that event or trend might “turn back the clock.”…

November 15, 2006
History

Representation

One of the key moves made since the 17th century, Latour argues, is a distinction between modes of “representation.” In the laboratory Boyle is representing things before selected witnesses through scientific experiments, giving mute nature a voice through the scientist, while in politics Hobbes suggests that the Sovereign speaks for…

November 15, 2006
History

We Have Never Been Modern

Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern (Harvard 1993) is a rich study. He describes modernity in terms of a dual process of “purification” and “hybridization.” Purification involves the clean construction of a nature (and science) separated off from society and the self, while hybridization involves mixtures of nature and…

November 15, 2006

Tears of things

And/Or: Virgil is aware that the furor of civil war can be curbed only by an opposing, and more intense, furor. That, as Milbank says, is the way of paganism - peace established only by superior violence against violence. But in those tears Virgil expresses the the painful recognition -…

November 13, 2006

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