Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Failure of the Church Yet a third factor played an important role in this historical development, in addition to the imperial adoption of icons and the rise of the icons of the holy man. Brown writes: "The great Christian basilicas of the previous centuries tended to stand empty, except…
The three large patriarchal narratives of Genesis concern the three aspects of the cosmos: matter, space, and time. Over these three is man given dominion. Lucifer was originally appointed to train man in this dominion, but he chose to lead man into rebellion instead. Thus, the Angel of Yahweh replaced…
Part 6: Living in a Dying World (continued) The "Trivium" (continued) The five stages of education are simply the five stages of the covenant as God administers it in human life and history, and in the liturgy of covenant renewal: First, God announces Himself. "I am Yahweh Your God." He…
The following essay is tentative and exploratory, offered for your consideration. It seems to me that the ritual of the Ascension Offering (incorrectly translated as Burnt Offering) of Leviticus 1 is a symbolic recapitulation of Genesis 1, which thereby portrays the sacrificial ritual as way of moving from a fallen…
Just as the vast majority of evangelical Christians in America today are Arminian and Baptist, so the vast majority do not believe in a creation around 4000 BC. I don’t expect any of these three situations to change anytime soon. Powerful presuppositions are at work in all three instances, along…
The Iconoclastic Controversy Continuing Pagan Influence How did images creep in? To begin with, there was in the post-Constantinian Church a concerted effort on the part of the semi-pagans to interpret Christianity in essentially pantheistic terms. The heretics put God and man on a continuum of "being," so that God…
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The demons that emerge from the abyssal cloud in Revelation 12 are initially are described as being like locusts. We know what that means. In the Egyptian plague, the scorpions cover the ground so that no one can see the land, and they eat and eat, eating everything that is…
Following the lead of John Paul II’s theology of the body, I offer some reflections on artistic depictions of the human body at http://www.firstthings.com/ this morning.
John Paul II has some wonderful passages in his discussion of Mathew 22:30, “In the resurrection they take neither wife nor husband, but are like the angels in heaven.” According to his analysis, this is not an annulment of the body or of sexuality but the fulfillment. For him, the…
I have generally used Leithart.com to share reading notes, engage in speculations in exploratory essays, record random thoughts and asides, occasionally to respond to critics. It’s not typically been a place for me to make personal announcements. This is an exception. For the past several months, I have been working…
In his contribution to Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions And Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology , Emmanuel Durand offers an Augustinian treatment of the role of the Spirit in the Father-Son relation: Generation is not merely a “mechanical” operation of divine essence or of the Father, but an expression of…
Sacraments, Louis-Marie Chauvet argues ( The Sacraments - The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body ), are matters of symbolic exchange. The sacrament is a gift and every gift demands a return gift. Not quite, argues Belcher ( Efficacious Engagement: Sacramental Participation in the Trinitarian Mystery 35):…
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