Peter J. Leithart

The church is the incubator of the new creation. It is the womb of a new world, where the new creation gestates. But it can also be an incubator of monsters and witches. That’s the message of the letters to the churches. As Austin Farrer and others point out, the letters anticipate later . . . . Continue Reading »

James Jordan notes the connection between Jesus’ warning to the church at Laodicea and Yahweh’s promise to Noah after the flood. Jesus warns the church that is “neither hot nor cold” that they will be spewed from His mouth (Revelation 3:15-16). In Genesis 8, Yahweh promises . . . . Continue Reading »

More reflections on the Zombie craze over at http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/08/zombies-are-us . . . . . Continue Reading »

In his Hegels Trinitarian Claim: A Critical Reflection , Dale Schlitt lays out Hegel’s effort to derive Trinitarian theology conceptually, rather than from revelation and redemptive history. In part, this is an argument about the structure of logic. For Hegel, the traiadic structure of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Ephesians 5:18-21: Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to . . . . Continue Reading »

Exodus 20:4: You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. Many read the Second Commandment as a prohibition of . . . . Continue Reading »

Christians who venerate icons often say that the Second Commandment applied to Israel, but now that God has shown Himself in a visible form, the rules have changed. We can now not only depict God in visible form, but we can worship God by bowing, kissing, burning candles, and venerating images. It . . . . Continue Reading »

The New Testament frequently turns prophetic texts inside out. In Revelation 3, for instance, Jesus applies prophecies that originally promised that Gentiles would bow to Jews to Jews bowing to the (largely Gentile) church of Philadelphia (3:9; cf. Isaiah 60:14). In one respect, the import is . . . . Continue Reading »

Smith again: Step #3 is to “notice the Bible’s inability to settle matters in dispute.” He points to “the women’s issue,” war and pacifism, creation, the millennium, mode of baptism, etc. Several responses. On the surface, he’s right. The church has had . . . . Continue Reading »

Christian Smith is on a roll. The Notre Dame sociologist came out earlier this year with a critique of “biblicism” ( Bible Made Impossible, The: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture ), about which I hope to write more later. He more recently has published a . . . . Continue Reading »