The Scriptorium Daily

Author: Matt Jenson

  • An Interview with Adam Johnson on the Atonement

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    Matt Jenson
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    Adam Johnson has made it his mission to think through the atonement, to look at it from as many angles as possible, to explore and expound the glories of God’s work in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ to reconcile to himself all things. He’s written some great books—God’s Being in Reconciliation: The Theological…

  • Sanctified by Grace: A Theology of Christian Life

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    Matt Jenson
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    I was surprised when they opened class in prayer. I had flown out to LA to interview for a job at Biola University, and the public display of piety took me off guard a bit. It shouldn’t have. Prayer and theological study belong together. Some of the earliest theological reflection erupted in prayer and praise.…

  • Roger Lundin (1949-2015)

    Roger Lundin (1949-2015)

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    Matt Jenson
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    I remember him larger than life. He was a big man—tall, solidly built, with a voice that boomed and the occasional flair for the dramatic. To this day, nearly twenty years later, the lasting image I have of Roger Lundin finds him crawling across the long wooden table that filled our seminar room to make…

  • Wedding Homily for Brett and Lydia

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    Matt Jenson
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    For Brett Stroud and Lydia Plett, July 18, 2015. Brett and Lydia, this is it. Today, you will be married. After long years of dating, more miles logged in LA traffic than anyone would care to count, dueling grad school schedules, and plenty of conversations about the future, here you are. Look around at all…

  • Wedding Homily for Daniel and Victoria

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    Matt Jenson
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    for Daniel Castle and Victoria Van Vlear, June 5, 2015 Well, Daniel and Victoria, this is it. You’ve arrived on the long-awaited day, your wedding day. Take a good look around you. Look at all these people who love you—who have led and listened to and looked out for you… When Daniel and Victoria and…

  • Are Artists Creators?

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    Matt Jenson
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    What do people do when they make a work of art? What do we mean when we speak of human creativity? Are artists creators? Humans are made in the image of God; does this imply that, in our creativity, we mirror his creating? Surely in some sense, human uniqueness includes our capacity to intentionally shape…

  • Because of Fairies

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    Matt Jenson
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    Recently, I spent twelve hours discussing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with sophomores in the Torrey Honors Institute. (What a job!) I love this play more and more. It’s easy to miss its richness–it’s such a romp! Here’s the thing that struck me in reading the play this time, and it’s a line that I…

  • When He Became a Child, the Affection Came

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    Matt Jenson
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    Francis Spufford wrote not long ago of “why, despite everything, Christianity can still make surprising emotional sense.” The great paradoxes of the faith–incarnation and crucifixion–would seem to resist any attempt to “make sense” of them. But, if one best enters these mysteries bowed low in humility and wide-eyed in wonder, one might yet discern something…

  • A Wedding Homily for Scott and Joanne

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    Matt Jenson
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    for Scott Munekawa and Joanne Santomauro, December 21, 2014 Scott and Joanne, welcome to your wedding! Don’t they look beautiful, everyone? What a delightful day; there’s such a rich sense of arrival about a day like today, isn’t there? And here you are, my friends! At the beginning of the ceremony, we sang a lovely…

  • Boersma Writes Back

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    Matt Jenson
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    On this Thanksgiving Day, we are grateful for a response from Hans Boersma to the three previous days’ blog posts (pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3). Let me first express my deep appreciation to Matt and Greg for taking the initiative to engage with my books on sacramental ontology and on nouvelle théologie.  I am…

  • Weaving a Platonic Tapestry (Boersma pt. 3)

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    Matt Jenson
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    Part 3 of Greg Peters and Matt Jenson’s discussion of Hans Boersma’s recent project on the Nouvelle Théologie.  Peters:  As a sacramentalist in the Anglican tradition who finds more affinity with the (Neo-)Platonic heritage than the Aristotelian heritage, there is much in Boersma (and the NT) that excites me. Throughout much of the text I found…

  • “An Infinite Forest of Meanings” (Boersma pt. 2)

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    Matt Jenson
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    Today we continue our discussion of Hans Boersma’s Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery. Jenson:  I’d assume just about any thoughtful Christian would want to applaud a view of the world as the theatre of God’s action. The Creator, thanks be to God, is also the Sustainer, Redeemer, and Perfecter. At a…