Fall 2012

The Word of God and the City of Man

The Bible is not a compendium of doctrines, ideas, or rules. Scripture teaches, but teaches through stories, poetry, exhortation, visions, letters. It’s done its proper work when it produces a certain kind of person—someone moulded by the Word of God who not only brings the Word to the city of man, but in union with the eternal Word is the Word of God in the city of man.

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In The Print Issue

Prayer

Collect for the Second Sunday of Advent

Book of Common Prayer

Essay

Peter Leithart

Editorial: The Word of God and the City of Man

The Bible has done its proper work when it produces a certain kind of person.

Essay

Paul Brink

Politics Without Scripts

A vision of politics in which Christianity and liberalism have both been disestablished.

Essay

James R. Payton, Jr.

Revisiting “Sola Scriptura”

The Reformers' understanding of Sola Scriptura is forthrightly opposed to what many have come to take as its meaning.

Essay

Al Wolters

Zechariah in Public

The city of man is meant to become the city of God—arranging its civic affairs in a manner which deserves the epithet HOLY TO THE LORD.

Essay

Richard Mouw

The Bible and Cultural Discipleship

Fallen, but created: this world is not unsalvageable.

Essay

Marilynne Robinson

The Book of Books: What Literature Owes the Bible

Literature puts flesh on Scripture and doctrine, and tests them by means of dramatic imagination.

Essay

Daniel Siedell

They Who Have Ears to Hear, Let Them See?

Considering aspects of modern art that have been despised by most theologians and Christian art writers.

Essay

Dru Johnson

Scripture is Not Our Dog

Unless we heedfully consider both the Scripture's content and form, we run the risk of making God's revelation into a pet: loved but powerless.

Essay

J. Mark Bertrand

What Made Dagon Bow?

While the Israelite army was defeated in battle, their God with no army brought the enemy to its knees.

Essay

Jean Vanier

Towards Transformational Reading of Scripture

We must gradually live as Jesus lived, love as he loved, and choose to become little and humble as Jesus was.

Essay

Lynn Cohick

“Render Unto Caesar”: The Christian’s Call to “Action” or “Retreat”?

How did Jesus's words and actions about the kingdom of God define and shape the apostolic response to the Roman empire?

Cardus

Raymond J. De Souza

The Blessedness of Faith: Why Politics Needs Religion

If religion and religious behaviours are driven to the margins of our common life, including our political life, we deprive ourselves of intellectual and practical energies.

Essay

Makoto Fujimura

Why Illumine?

Do images detract from experiencing the word of God?

Essay

Matthew J. Milliner

Anchors Aweigh! The Neglected Art of Theological Interpretation

The nature of visual art sometimes permits it to do a better job of spiritually interpreting the Bible than can text.

Book Review

Paul S. Rowe

God and American Foreign Relations: Guarding the “Little Platoons”

Ensuring faith is lived out by the American people, not consigned to presidential theocracy.

Essay

Benjamin Kwashi

Here is the Privilege, and Here is the Cost

Wherever the Gospel is truly lived, it demands change in behaviour, courtesy, and character.

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Essay

Esther Lightcap Meek

Reading the Bible . . . and Longing to Know

The Bible is a doorway to a person, an invitation waiting to be sent. When we read it obediently and expectantly, like an actor, we find gracious and surprising self-disclosure.

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