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Writing

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

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Church Calendar

Five Misconceptions of Reformation Day

For many people the date October 31 is significant not only for being the Eve of All Saints (All Hallows Eve, Halloween) but as the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. These theses were a list of…

by Timothy LeCroyOctober 31, 2017
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Church Calendar

Concerning Halloween

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter. "Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint,"…

by James B. JordanOctober 26, 2017
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Revelation

Preaching, An Art of Division

The following is an excerpt from Peter Leithart's forthcoming two-volume commentary on Revelation (T&T Clark). Y ou must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings,” a voice tells John (Rev. 10:11). Then someone gives him a “reed like a rod” and instructs him to measure (11:1).…

by Peter LeithartOctober 24, 2017
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Back To Egypt

Josiah is an ideal Davidic king in many ways. He not only “did right,” but he “walked in the ways of his father David” and “did not turn aside to the right or to the left” (2 Chronicles 34:2). At the age of 16, he began to seek Yahweh, and…

by Peter LeithartOctober 19, 2017
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Augustine

Augustine and the Music of Time

One of the best discussions of Augustine’s views on time comes from Jeremy Begbie’s Theology, Music, and Time (ch. 3). Following Paul Ricoeur, Begbie claims that Augustine’s distentio “is conceived as the three-fold present, and the threefold present as distentio . The distentio consists in the non-coincidence of the mind’s…

by Peter LeithartOctober 17, 2017
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How to Worship

The Psalter Should be Woven into the Fabric of Worship

This has always been the position of the Christian Church, and from an historical perspective the present situation in evangelicalism is appalling. The early liturgies of the Church, which are still used in Episcopal and Lutheran worship, are laced with psalm phrases. The early hymns, such as the Te Deum…

by James B. JordanOctober 12, 2017

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Turn of civilization

At the end of his wonderful essay on “Art and Sacrament,” the Welsh poet and painter David Jones included a fragment that he wrote and rewrote over several decades. Here is wisdom: I said, ah! what shall I write? I inquired up and down (he’s tricked before with his manifold…

September 14, 2005

The Pianist and the Nazis

In a 2003 TNR review of Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning film, The Pianist , Michael Oren gives information about Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer who assists Szpilman: “while scrounging in an abandoned house for food, Szpilman comes face-to-face with a German officer. Instead of drawing his revolver, the officer asks Szpilman…

September 14, 2005
Literature

Marilynne Robinson

Here are a couple of selections from a September 2004 New Yorker interview with Marilynne Robinson: Q. “In your nonfiction collection, ‘The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought,’ you wrote about the sixteenth-century theologian John Calvin, and about his strong sense of humanism and tolerance and his importance to…

September 14, 2005

Odysseus’ return to himself

Charles Segal argues in his Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey that Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is a return to himself. This works in several dimensions. Through the second half of the epic, various characters reconstruct the story of Odysseus’ life - the story of his naming and the…

September 14, 2005

Odysseus’ return to himself

Charles Segal argues in his Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey that Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is a return to himself. This works in several dimensions. Through the second half of the epic, various characters reconstruct the story of Odysseus’ life - the story of his naming and the…

September 14, 2005
Theology

Matter and spirit

Discussing the question of the corporeality of angels, Herman Bavinck argues that angels cannot have bodies because that would imply they are material and “matter and spirit are mutually exclusive.” He charges that “it is a form of pantheistic identity philosophy to mix the two and to erase the distinction…

September 13, 2005

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