Tag: Featured
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Towards The Eternal City: St. Augustine's Theology of History
It is quite common to hear from various Christian circles on how we must influence Washington with Christian values, and that bringing our nation to a more Christian footing morally, cultural and politically must be a top priority. But even if we did succeed in creating this optimum Christian society, what are the chances of…
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What Stephen Saw, We Hear
At the very beginning of the Christian church, before it was ever called “Christian” or often called “church,” it was a large group of new believers in Jesus gathered in Jerusalem, figuring things out as they went along. They were learning how to be disciples of a Lord who, having ascended into heaven, could no…
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Cats Superbowl Party
Downstairs: A well-dressed reveler arrives, as previous guests doff exo-togs at a handy hat rack. Climbing a ladder to the second floor, partiers pile up on at least two chairs to watch the big game. I count at least a dozen there. Snacks are on the third floor, and the board groans under these lavish…
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Form: How a Marriage is Like a Poem (Wendell Berry)
In his 1982 essay “Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms,” Wendell Berry used poetry and marriage as images of each other. It was hard to tell whether the essay was mainly about poetry or mainly about marriage, because the two were mutually illuminating. Berry moved his analogical eye back and forth between these…
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Giles of Viterbo: The Humanist Scholastic
The Commentary on the Sentences of Petrus Lombardus, by Giles of Viterbo. Giles of Viterbo (1469-1532) was the most active and creative theologians who tried to bring together two worlds: the Renaissance and its call to return to the sources of classical antiquity, and the medieval scholastic tradition. Nothing brings out this creative syncretic…
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Some Poetry with Your Haircut, Sir?
I like vintage barber shops. Ever since I was a boy, they have been part of my life (of course, in those days, they were simply known as regular, run-of-the-mill barber shops). My father would take me to a Cuban barber who had a faint resemblance to Floyd, the barber in the “Andy Griffiths Show.”…
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God the Father's Sons and Offspring
I’ve been reading about the doctrine of God the Father, a doctrine which has no handy name. Following the model of christology (the doctrine about Jesus Christ) and pneumatology (the doctrine about the Holy Spirit), we ought to call it patrology, but that word is already…
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How to Discuss: Have Faith, Have Hope, Have Love.
Wheatstone’s summer conference just ended. We had a week of great seminars, workshops, cultural events, and (maybe most importantly) small group discussions. It’s incredible to walk around a conference campus and see clusters of students or educators discussing hard ideas with a Wheatstone mentor. Intent faces. Wild hand gestures. “But what does it mean to be…
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Readings on the Trinity (Class Outline)
This is the book list, with short annotations, for a class I teach on the Trinity from time to time here at Biola. There’s more to a class than just the book list, of course: our classroom work is all Socratic discussion, and during the semester we spend some time on supplementary topics like the…
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A Noble Risk: The Making of a Wheatstone Conference Theme
Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator. 1 Peter 4:19 No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but I think it is fitting for a man to risk…
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What I learned from John Mark Reynolds
I can still recall the day, seventeen years ago. We were introduced one Sunday by a mutual mentor of ours, the late, much lamented Fr. Michael E. Trigg. After the morning liturgy, we three talked for quite an extended time in the parish hall during the coffee hour, talking books, ideas, and Socratic pedagogy. By…
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How to Teach Salvation: Three Mysteries
There are three great mysteries in Christian theology: the Trinity, the incarnation, and the atonement. These three mysteries are all mysteries of unity: The mystery of the Trinity is how the three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are the one, only God. The mystery of the incarnation is how the divine nature is united to…