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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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God of the Gospel

Scott Swain’s question in The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology is about “the relationship between God’s being and God’s self-determination between the Trinity and election, between God’s unfailing character and God’s unfolding covenant that reaches its climax in the gospel of Jesus Christ” (14). The question is…

May 28, 2013

Tree of Life

OK, so it’s old, but Geoffrey O’Brien’s NYRB review of Malick’s The Tree Of Life is one of the best things I’ve come across. A few highlights. “An aroma of Freudian family romance pervades the film like a cloud of slightly acrid perfume, and Malick (who has written a screenplay…

May 28, 2013
Philosophy

Is Language Mysterious?

Yes, answers Charles Taylor ( Dilemmas and Connections: Selected Essays , 50-1). But how? Taylor suggests there are three facets to mystery: (1) It refers to something we cannot explain; (2) it refers to something that we cannot explain that also is “something of great depth and moment”; and (3),…

May 28, 2013

Tradition and the Word

Benedict XVI’s God’s Word: Scripture, Tradition, Office has some very good things to say, and some very questionable things. The good first. Christ, he emphasizes, is revelation, and the presence of revelation is the presence of Christ. Scripture presents this presence in two ways. First, the presence of Christ is…

May 27, 2013

AutoCulture

Paul Barker’s review Carscapes: The Motor Car, Architecture, and Landscape in England in the TLS highlights the effect on the automobile on architecture and urban design. The authors “quote the historian Jack Simmons, in 1947, seeing his adoptive city, Leicester, stripped of its past in pursuit of engineers’, planners’ and…

May 27, 2013

Machen on Catholicism

Machen was not one to pussyfoot about theological differences. But he also recognized the chasm that lay between Catholoicism and Protestant liberalism ( Christianity and Liberalism ): “Far more serious still is the division between the Church of Rome and evangelical Protestantism in all its forms. Yet how great is…

May 27, 2013

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