Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Leithart

Home
Evangelical
Baptismal efficacy

Baptismal efficacy

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:47 pm by Peter Leithart

Baptismal efficacy 2017-09-06T22:47:40+06:00 Peter Leithart

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The SJC committee also addressed my views on baptism, but again does not quote from my response to Presbytery. To clarify my views, and again to clarify what the Pacific NW Presbytery had in front of it when they considered my views, I post my response to the criticisms of the Majority Resport.

Response to criticisms of Majority Report.

Though concluding that my views are within Confessional boundaries, the Majority Report levels some serious and weighty criticisms against my views on baptism. I cannot fully address all their criticisms here but will make only a few brief remarks.

First, I should note that the quotations from The Baptized Body listed on page 9 of the Majority Report are simply efforts to paraphrase and summarize several biblical passages on baptism. The first that links baptism to God’s judgment of sin and justification arises from Romans 6, where Paul says that those who have been baptized into Christ share in His death and therefore are “justified from sin” (v. 7). The second is drawing from 1 Corinthians 6:11, which I take as a baptismal passage, and the last is from Colossians 2:11-12 . . . . my aim is to formulate baptismal theology in a way that makes these biblical expressions seem natural.

Second, the third quotation states that the baptized “share in all that he has to give.” On further reflection, I believe that this is overstated, and actually violates one of the principal assumptions of my baptismal theology. Above, I noted that I have attempted to avoid mechanistic models and metaphors for sacramental efficacy, and instead attempted to work out sacramental theology in personalist categories. But the notion that everyone shares equally in everything that Christ has to give verges back into a mechanistic conception. Since Christ and His Spirit are persons, and we are persons united in fellowship with them, the contours of that union and relationship vary from person to person. Even among the elect, it is not true to say that we all share in all Christ has to give; some know Christ more intimately than others. Reprobates who are branches in the vine for only a time certainly have a different relationship with Christ than the elect. My more careful claim would be that the baptized share in Christ Himself and in His body, in varying ways and degrees.

Third, the Majority Report rests much of its criticism of my position on 1 John 2:19. The Majority Report is correct to chide me for not giving more attention to the passage. Arguably, however, that passage is not directly germane to the question at hand. Verse 18 warns that antichrists have already arisen, and antichrists in John’s letters are false teachers opposed to Christ. In a review of Guy Waters’s book on the Federal Vision, Jack Collins of Covenant Seminary points to a number of questions that need to be addressed in this passage:

“Who are ‘they’ who went out? (“Antichrists,: v. 18.) Is this about apostasy in general? (Not obviously.) Who are ‘we’ in this context? (John and his apostolic companions?) What is John’s use of ‘of’ ( ek )? How strongly ‘qualitative’ is the language used here? Since this is vital to Waters’ view of church membership, and to his distinction between the ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ church, he should lay out his case in full.” [1]

If the “going out” in 1 John 2:19 is not apostasy but unauthorized mission, then this passage is not the uniquely explanatory text that the Report suggests. [2] Even if the Majority Report’s understanding of the passage is correct, it doesn’t undermine the thesis of The Baptized Body . I could agree that apostate reprobates were never “of us” in the way that the persevering elect are, yet also argue that in various senses they were “of us” – at least in the sense that they publicly professed Christ, joined in worship with the people of God, shared in the church’s ministry; perhaps in stronger senses as well. Since God’s work is the work of discipling the nations, and reprobates may for a time share in that work, they may for a time be on “God’s side of history.”

This raises, fourth, the issue of internal/external. According to the Majority Report, I “decry” this distinction because it eviscerates the efficacy of baptism. That is true; I do decry certain versions of this distinction, particularly versions that regard the inner man as a being impervious to outside influence or effect. If external events and realities cannot penetrate to the inner man, then we have no grounds for sacramental theology at all, since sacraments are outward bodily acts.

At the same time, I acknowledge that the Bible regularly teaches that human beings have an internal and an external dimension. The tabernacle is, among other things, an architectural human being, and it has an “inner” and “outer” sanctuary. Paul uses an “inner man/outer man” distinction in various places (Romans 7:22; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 3:16). So, the issue is not whether this distinction is a biblical one; it is. The question is what the Bible means by this distinction and how it functions. It’s very easy for us to read the Biblical inner/outer distinction through our own cultural lenses, where the Cartesian subject/object, mind/body dualism is still instinctive.

Let me briefly analyze one important use of this sort of distinction, Romans 2:27-29. In the context (I believe) of a discussion of Jews and Gentiles, Paul introduces a distinction between different sorts of circumcision. There is the manifest circumcision in the flesh, and the “secret” ( kruptos ) circumcision of the Spirit. Jews who don’t keep the law are not Jews, and their circumcision is uncircumcision (v. 25). Only those who keep the law by the power of the Spirit are Jews and the true circumcision. Within Israel, then, there are some who are circumcised only in the manifest, fleshly sense, and others who are circumcised also in the secret, Spiritual sense.

For Paul, however, this does not mean that fleshly circumcision is meaningless or useless, or that those who received fleshly circumcision received nothing. As Paul’s argument continues into chapter 3, he asks “What advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?” (v. 1). Clearly, he is speaking of what he has just described as Jews and circumcision according to flesh; the advantage of those who are circumcised by the Spirit is obvious. Given Paul’s distinction between fleshly and Spiritual circumcision, we might expect him to answer his question with “Fleshly circumcision gives no advantage.” That is not what Paul says, however. “Great in every respect” (v. 2). Here, he lists only one of the great advantages of fleshly Israel – “they were entrusted with the oracles of God” (v. 2).

When Paul picks up the argument later in Romans, however, he expands on the advantage of fleshly Israel: “For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the

glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.” (9:3-5).

Fleshly Israel – the “visible church” of the Old Testament – received great blessings. They were the son(s) of Yahweh, had the glory of Yahweh dwelling in their midst, received the covenants and promises, had a law that was the envy of the nations, was privileged with the temple service and the great heritage of the patriarchs. Above all, they were the people of Jesus, the Christ, the king of all things. When God blessed forever became flesh, He became Jewish flesh. These are blessings enjoyed by the “manifest” or “external” Jew, and they are considerable.

I don’t think I am imagining things to conclude that Paul’s is not the view of many in the PCA. Do we tell baptized children, “Yours is the adoption; yours the glory and the covenants and promises and commandments; you have a great heritage, and are privileged to have a place in the temple of the living God”? If Reformed theologians and pastors had so robust an understanding of the gifts conferred in baptism, I would not have devoted so much time to the subject of baptismal efficacy.

Fifth, the Majority Report charges that I have not paid enough attention to the pervasive reality of nominalism and unbelief in the church: ”We say again, one feature of Dr. Leithart’s construction of baptismal efficacy that strikes us as particularly unfortunate and revealing is his failure to reckon with the fact that the spiritual situation of the largest part of the company of baptized unbelievers is not in fact described in the texts that he cites. The truly nominal – who have never ‘received the word with joy’; have never been ‘enlightened’; have never ‘tasted the heavenly gift’; have never ‘shared in the Holy Spirit’; have never tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age; and ‘have [never] known our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ – are not apostates in the biblical sense of the term. The Bible does not describe generations-long unbelief in the church as if in every case the baptized individual had such powerful experiences of the reality of Christ and salvation but eventually turned his back on them. He was never at any time such a man as these texts describe. He was not once one thing and later another.”

I have several responses to this. In certain respects, I concede the truth of the criticism. As I’ve written about baptism, my imagined picture of baptism is, for instance, a baptism in a faithful PCA congregation rather than the baptism of a child whose parents will never return to the church. I also concede that the description of Hebrews 6 don’t necessarily apply to everyone who is baptized into the visible church. The “personalist” framework I’ve described above implies this very thing: Not every reprobate’s experience is the same.

Yet, my position does have a way of dealing with the problem of nominalism. I disagree with the Majority Report’s claim that some are “baptized and unbaptized.” Baptism is God’s act, and it is as real and objective as the water on the baptized. Everyone who is baptized is claimed by Christ as His own. Baptism is not double, but the response to baptism is. Some will respond with faith in the promise delivered in baptism, and with loyal adherence to the Lord who claims them. Others will respond with varying degrees of treachery. Both, though, are baptized, and the traitor’s end is all the worse because he rejected the gifts God gave him.

Further, I am not convinced that the description of Hebrews 6 is as rare as the Majority Report suggests. How can we know what God may be doing with an infant baptized by an unbelieving pastor in a shell of an Anglican parish? Baptism belongs to Christ, and I don’t presume to know what the Lord of the church, the Lord of baptism, might be doing in any particular instance. I am not convinced of what the Majority Report states as a “fact” namely, “that the spiritual situation of the largest part of the company of baptized unbelievers is not in fact described in the texts that he cites.” Even if I concede the Hebrews 6 describes the rare case, we are still left with 2 Peter 2:20-22: Some “escape from the defilements of the world” and then “are again entangled in them.” On the surface, this appears a more common experience, and yet Peter describes the eventual apostate as one who has knowledge of the Lord and Savior and of the way of righteousness.

Finally, the Majority Report rebukes me for failing to take account of important biblical qualifications: “If Dr. Leithart’s central affirmation in The Baptized Body is that ‘Without qualification or hedging, the church is the body of Christ,’ [p. ix] he was duty bound to address the class of scriptural texts that clearly qualify and hedge.” The quoted statement is potentially misleading, so let me clarify. The visible church is the body of Christ, but it is the body of Christ in time and history, the body of Christ in the “already” awaiting the eschatological “not yet.” This could be described as a qualification; the claim that the church is the body of Christ is eschatologically qualified. Yet, the church, even in the already, is the body of Christ, the humanity of the glorified Son of God in the Spirit. That it is not yet a perfected body doesn’t mean it’s not the body. The church is analogous to the individual believer at this point: We will one day be perfected in holiness; but even now we are truly saints.

6. Conclusion.

At the center of my work on baptism has been the question of how we regard and treat our children. I have not been so directly concerned with thinking about how nominal Christians should treat their children. What are we allowed to say to our children? May we tell them that their sins are forgiven? May we tell them that God accepts them and counts them righteous? Should we assure them that they are beloved? Can we tell them they belong to Jesus and are united to Him? On the Minority Report’s position, it appears that we are not allowed to say any of these things with assurance. Union with Christ, justification and forgiveness are special benefits of the invisible church, and we have no way of knowing that our children are members of that community. But the promise is to us and to our children. They are covenant children, and God is their God.

[1] Presbyterion 33:2.

[2] Matthew 7 might be taken similarly. Jesus is clearly addressing false prophets in that text, and arguable the “I never knew you” should be restricted by that context. Jesus never knew false prophets as His representatives in mission.

Theology - Liturgical

Previous Post

December 12, 2009

Covenant of works

Next Post

December 12, 2009 Baptism

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 1 Corinthians 1-2 Samuel 1968 Abelard Abortion Abraham Acedia AD 70 Adam Smith Addiction Advent Advertising Aeneid Aesthetics Africa African Christianity African Church African religion Age Aging Agriculture Airline industry Alabama Alasdair MacIntyre Albania Alcohol Allegory Alms Alternative Medicine Ambrose America American Christianity American culture American economy American Evangelicals American Foreign Policy American history American Literature American Military American Politics American Religion American Revolution Anagogy Analytic Philosophy Anamnesis Ancient Egypt Ancient Greece Ancient history Ancient Near East Ancient Religion Angels Anglican Church Anglicanism Animism Anointing of the Sick Anselm Anthropology Anthropomorphism anti-Catholicism Antiquities Antonio Lopez apocalypse Apocalyptic Apocalyptic language Apostles Creed Aquinas Archeology Architecture Arianism Aristotle Ark of the Covenant Art Art History Ascension Aseity Assurance Athanasius Atheism Athens atonement Attention Attributes Augustine Austin Farrer Authority autonomy Avant-garde Awe Bach Ballooning Balzac Banking Bankruptcy Baptism Baptists Baseball Basketball Bavinck Beatitudes Beauty Behavioral Economics Being Benedict XVI Benjamin Benjamin Franklin Beowulf Berkeley Bernie Sanders Bertrand Russell Bestiary Bible Bible - criticism Bible - NT Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians Bible - NT - 1 John Bible - NT - 1 Peter Bible - NT - 2 Corinthians Bible - NT - 2 Peter Bible - NT - Acts Bible - NT - Colossians Bible - NT - Ephesians Bible - NT - Galatians Bible - NT - Gospels Bible - NT - Hebrews Bible - NT - James Bible - NT - John Bible - NT - Jude Bible - NT - Luke Bible - NT - Mark Bible - NT - Matthew Bible - NT - Paul Bible - NT - Philippians Bible - NT - Revelation Bible - NT - Romans Bible - NT - Thessalonians Bible - NT - Timothy Bible - OT Bible - OT - Amos Bible - OT - Chronicles Bible - OT - Daniel Bible - OT - Deuteronomy Bible - OT - Ecclesiastes Bible - OT - Esther Bible - OT - Exodus Bible - OT - Ezekiel Bible - OT - Ezra-Nehemiah Bible - OT - Genesis Bible - OT - Habakkuk Bible - OT - Hosea Bible - OT - Isaiah Bible - OT - Jeremiah Bible - OT - Job Bible - OT - Joel Bible - OT - Jonah Bible - OT - Joshua Bible - OT - Judges Bible - OT - Kings Bible - OT - Lamentations Bible - OT - Leviticus Bible - OT - Malachi BIble - OT - Micah Bible - OT - Nehemiah Bible - OT - Numbers Bible - OT - Pentateuch Bible - OT - Proverbs Bible - OT - Psalms Bible - OT - Ruth Bible - OT - Samuel Bible - OT - Song of Songs Bible - OT - Torah Bible - OT - Zechariah Bible - OT - Zephaniah Biblical Law Biblicism Billy Graham biography Biology Biololgy Biotechnology Blasphemy Blindness Blog news Blogging Blogroll Bloomsbury Group Bob Dylan Body Body symbolism Boethius Boko Haram Bonhoeffer Book of Common Prayer Books Botany Boundary Brexit Britain British History British Politics Bruce Springsteen Buddhism Bureaucracy Burial Business C. S. Lewis C. S. Peirce Calendars Caliphate Calvin calvinism Camille Paglia Canon Capitalism Cappadocians Carl Schmitt Catholic Social Teaching Catholicism Catholicity Causation cemeteries Cervantes Charism Charismata Charity Charles Dickens Charles Hodge Charles Simeon Charles Taylor Charles Williams Chaucer Chermistry Chess Chesterton Chiasm children China Chinese Exclusion Act Chivalry Chopin Chretien de Troyes Christendom Christian Democracy Christian reconstruction Christianity in Britain Christianization Christmas Christology Chronology Church church and state Church architecture Church Calendar Church history Church of England Church Year Cicero Circumcision Cities City of God Civil Religion Civil Society Civil War Civility Classical Theism Classics Climate Change Clothing Coleridge Colloquy of Marburg Colonialism Color Comedy Comenius Commodity Communio Communism Community Comparative religions Computer Science Confederacy Confessionalization Conflict Congregations consciousness Consecration Conservatism Constantine Constitution consumerism Contra Faustum Conversion Coriolanus Cormac McCarthy Cosmology Cosmopolitanism Council of Trent Counter-culture Counter-insurgency Courage Courtly love Covenants Crafts Craftsmanship Cranach Creation Creativity Creator-creature Credit Crime Crime and Punishment Crisis Critical scholarship Criticism Cross Cubism Cultural theory Culture Culture War Dance Daniel Dennett Dante Darwin Dave Eggers David David Foster Wallace David Hume David Jones Deadly sins Death Debt Dechristianization Decolonization Deconstruction Defoe Deja vu Democracy Denis de Rougemont Denominationalism Derrida Descartes Developmental psychology Devils Diocletian Discipleship Disenchantment Disgust Diversion Diversity Divine energies Divine Impassibility Divine Simplicity Divine Warrior Doctrine dogma Dominion Donald Trump Dostoevsky Douglas Campbell Douglas Farrow Dreams Dualism Durkheim Dystopia E.M. Forster Early Christianity Early Modern Europe Easter Eastern Europe Eastern Orthodoxy Ecclesiology Ecclesiology Economics Economy Ecumenism Eden Edgar Allan Poe Edmund Spenser Education Egypt Election Elites Emergence Emma Emotion Empire England English History English Reformation Enlightenment Entertainment Entrepreneur environmentalism Envy Epic Epiphany Episcopals Epistemology Epistles Equality Erasmus Ernst Kantorowicz Eros Eschatology Eternity Ethics Eucharist Europe Evangelicalism Evangelicals and Catholics Together Events Evil Evolution Exile Face Fairie Queene Fairy Tales Faith family Family and Marriage Fantasy Farming Fashion Fasting Fatherhood Fear Femininity Feminism Fertility Fetishization Feud Feudalism Feuerbach Fiction Figs Film Finance Finland Fire Flag Flags Flannery O'Connor Flood myths Folly Food football Foreign Affairs Foreign Policy Foreknowledge Forgiveness Foucault Fracking France Francois Mauriac Franz Rosenzweig free will Freedom Freedom of God French Revolution Freud Funerals Future G. K. Chesterton Gambling Gaming Gay Marriage Gender gender identity Genealogy Geography George Berkeley George Eliot George Herbert; Poetry George Romanes Gerald Manley Hopkins Germany Gethsemane Gift Gifts Giorgio Agamben Global Christianity Global economics Globalism Globalization Glorious Revolution Gnosticism God's sovereignty Gods Goethe Golf Good Friday Gospel Gospels Gothic Gothic architecture Grace Grammar Gramsci Gratitude Greek Literature Greek Philosophy Greek Religion Greek Science Gregory of Nyssa Guillermo del Toro H. Richard Niebuhr Haiku hair Hamann Hamlet Handicap Handles Hands Hans Urs von Balthasar Happiness Harold Bloom Harper Lee Harvest healing Heaven Heavenly treasure Heavenly treasure Hebrew Bible Hebrew language Hegel Heidegger Hell Hellenism; Judaism; Revelation Henri de Lubac heresy Herman Dooyeweerd Hermeneutics Herod Heroic Heroism Hesiod Hidegard of Bingen Hierarchy Hieronymus Bosch Historicism Historiography History History - Early Modern History - Middle Ages Hoaxes Hobbes Holiness Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Home Homeless Homer Homosexuality Honor hope Horror Hospitality Housing Hugh of St. Victor Human Rights Humanism Humor hylomorphism Hymns Hypocrisy. Iago Iconoclasm Identity Ideology Idleness Idolatry Iliad Images Imagination Immigrant churches Immigrant Religion Immigration Imperialism Improvization Imputation Incarnation Incest India Individualism Indonesia Inequality Inerrancy Infant Baptism Infant mortality Infanticide Ingratitude Innovation Inspiration Institutions Insult Intellectual History Intellectuals Intelligent Design International Politics Internet Intimacy IQ Iran Iran-Iraq War Iraq Ireland Irony Islam Islamic State Islamism Ismail Kadare Israel Ivan Illich J. Gresham Machen J.N. Figgis Jacob Jacques Lacan James Bond James Jordan James Joyce James KA Smith James Wood Jane Austen Jane Jacobs Jealousy Jed Perl Jeff Koons Jeroboam Jesus Jewish War 66-70 AD Jihad Johann Georg Hamann Johannine Epistles John Ashbery John Behr John Bunyan John Calvin John Donne John Frame John Howard Yoder John Knox John Milbank John Milton John Owen John Rawls John Ruskin John Stuart Mill John the Baptist John Webster John Wesley John Williamson Nevin Jonathan Edwards Jorge Luis Borges Joseph Conrad Joseph Ratzinger Journalism Joy Judaism Judaize Judgment Judith Butler Jurgen Moltmann Justice Justification Kalevala Kant Karl Barth Karl Marx Karl Polanyi Karl Rahner Kazakhstan Kazuo Ishiguro Kenneth Lonergan Kierkegaard King Lear Kingdom of God Kitsch Knighthood Knowledge Korea Labor movement Lactantius Lamech Lament Landscape Language Latin America Laughter Law Law and Punishment Leftism Lent Les Murray Levi-Strauss Levites Leviticus Liber Mundi Liberal arts Liberal Theology Liberalism Light Lighthouse Linguistics LIstening Literacy Literary structure Literature Liturgics Liturgy Locke Logic Love Luther Lutheran Lutheranism Lying Lytton Strachey Macbeth Machiavelli Machines Madness Mainline Manhattan Manicheanism Manners Manufacturing Manuscripts Mao Zedong Maps Marcion Marilynne Robinson Marketing Marriage Martha Nussbaum Martin Bucer Martin Chemnitz Martyrdom Marx Marxism Mary Mary Douglas masculinity Mass Materialism Mathematics Maundy Thursday Max Weber Media Mediation Medication Medicine Medieval Church Medieval exegesis Medieval Literature Medieval theology Medieval Thought Medievalism Memory Merchant of Venice Mesopotamian Religion Messianic Metaphor Metaphysics Methodist Mexican-American War Michel de Montaigne Michel Faber Middle Ages Middle East Midwifery Mikhail Bulgakov Military Millennium Mind Miracles Miscellaneous Mission missionaries Mixed constitution Modern self modernism Modernity monasticism Monotheism Monroe Doctrine Monsters Montaigne's Essays Moral philosophy Mormonism Moses Mother Teresa Motherhood Motive Mount of Olives Movies Multiculturalism Murder Music Musicals Mutability Mutability Mystery Mysticism myth N. T. Wright Narrative Nation-State Nationalism Natural Law Natural-Supernatural Nature Nature and culture Nature and Grace Nazi Nazirite Necrophilia Nero Nestorianism Neuroscience Nevin Lectures New Atheism New Testament New York City Newbigin News NGOs Nibelungenlied Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Lyra Nietzsche Nigeria Nihilism Nobel Prize Nobility Nominalism Norbert Elias Norman MacCaig nostalgia Novels Numerology Obama Objectivity and subjectivity Occasionalism Odysseus Oil Old Testament Oliver O'Donovan Ontology Origen original sin Orthodoxy Othello Owen Barfield Pacifism Pactum salutis Paedocommunion Paganism Pain Painting Paleoconservatism Palm Sunday Pannenberg Parenting Pascal Passions Passivity Pastoral Care Pastoral theology Patrick Modiano Patristics Patronage Paul Peace of God Peace of Westphalia Penal substitution Pentecost Pentecostalism Perichoresis Pericles Persecution Person Peter Peter Enns Petrarch Philip K. Dick Philip Melanchthon Philosophy Philosophy of Action Philosophy of History Philosophy of language Philosophy of science Phone booth Photography Physics Pictures Pierre Bourdieu Place Planned Parenthood Plants plato Play Plot Plotinus Pluralism Pneumatology Poetics poetry Poetry & Stories Poland police Political Philosophy Political theology Political Theory Politics Pop Culture Pope Francis Popular Culture Populism Pornography Porphyry Post-Colonial Theory Post-Structuralism Postmodernism Postmodernity Potential Poverty Power Practice Pragmatism Prayer Preaching Predestination Prediction Prehistory Premillennialism Presbyterian Priesthood Prince Charles Prison Reform privacy Private Prodigal Son Progress Progressivism Property Prophecy Prophet Propitiation Prosperity gospel Prostitution Protectionism Protestantism Providence Prudentius psalms Pseudo-Dionysus Psychological Warfare Psychology Public intellectual Public Life Public Philosophy Public Theology Publishing Punk Rock Pure nature Puritanism Purity Pushkin Putin Pythagoreanism R.J. Rushdoony Race Racism Radical Orthodoxy Rape Rationality Reactionary reading Realism Reason Red State Blue State Reformation Reformational Catholicism Reformational Philosophy Reformed theology refugees reinhold niebuhr Relationality Relativism Relics Religion Religion and science Religions Religious Freedom Religious Liberty Religious Right Renaissance Rene Girard Republican Party Resurrection Resurrection. Revelation Revelations Revenge Revivalism Revolution rhetoric Richard Flannagan Richard II Richard III Richard Wagner Richard Wilbur Righteousness Ritual Robert Frost Robert Herrick Robert Jenson Robert Mugabe Robert Spaemann Robinson Crusoe Rock n' Roll Rod Dreher Rodin Roman Catholicism Roman Empire Roman Religion Romance Romanticism Rome Rootedness Rosenstock-Huessy Rousseau Rowan Williams Rural America Russia Russian literature Russian Orthodoxy Rusty Reno Rwanda S. Y. Agnon Sabbath Sacrament Sacramental theology Sacraments Sacred Sacred Space Sacrifice saints Salt Sam Harris Same-sex marriage Sanctuary Satan Satire Saudi Arabia Scapegoat Scarcity Schism Schleiermacher Scholarship Science Science and Theology Science Fiction Scopes trial Scotland Scott Adams Scott Cairns Scottish Reformation Scotus Scripture and tradition sculpture Sea Second temple Secularism Secularization Self-Help Self-trust Semiotics Semper reformanda separation of church and state Sermon on the Mount Sex Sex Trafficking Sexual abuse Sexual Politics Sexual Revolution Sexuality Shakespeare Shame Culture Shema Sherlock Shopping Silence Simone Weil Simplicity Simpsons Sin Sincerity Sixties Skepticism Slavery Slavoj Zizek Sleep Sloth Social capital Social change Social Imaginary Social Science Socialism Socialization Sociology Sociology of Knowledge Sociology of Religion Sola scriptura Sonnets Sophocles Soteriology Soviet Union Space Spain Speculation Spinoza Spirit Sport Sports Star Trek State State-formation Stephen Masty Steven Bannon Strangers Structuralism structure Subject-object Substitution Suburbs Suffering Suicide Super-Rich Superheroes Supersessionism Supplication Supreme Court Surveillance Symbol Synagogue Taberancle Tabernacle Tax Taxes Tears Technology Teens Teleology Television Temple Ten Commandments Terence Terrence Malick Terrorism Thanksgiving The South The West Theodore Roosevelt Theogony Theological Education Theological Language Theology Theology - Anthropology Theology - Christology Theology - Covenant Theology - Creation Theology - Ecclesiology Theology - Eschatology Theology - Liturgical Theology - Pneumatology Theology - Soteriology Theology - Trinity Theology proper Theopolis Theopolis Institute Theosis Theresa May Thomas A. Clark Thomas Aquinas Thomas Carlyle Thomas Mann Threshing Thucydides Time Tocqueville Tolerance Toleration Tolstoy Tom Wolfe Tools Torah Torture Toscanini Totalitarianism Trade Tradition Tragedy Transhumanism Translation Transubstantiation Travel Trees Trinitarianism Trinity Trinity House Tristan Troilus and Creysede Trump Trump Truth Turkey Twelfth Night Two Kingdoms Typology Ukraine Ulysses Uncanny Uncategorized Uniform Union with Christ United States Unity University Usury Utilitarianism Utopia Value Vatican II Vengeance Vico Victorian Age Victorian Literature Vienna Violence Virgil Virgin Birth Virginia Woolf Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Solovyev Vladimir Solovyov W.H. Auden Walls Walt Disney Walt Whitman Walter Benjamin Walter Lippmann War Wars of Religion Washington DC Wealth Weddings Will William Carlos Williams William Gilpin William Golding Wine Wisdom wonder Word of God Wordsworth Work Works World Council of Churches World History World War I World War II Worldview Worship Wrath Writing Youth Youth Ministry Yuja Wang Yves Congar Zimbabwe Zwingli Zygmunt Bauman

Select a Month January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who opposed the rebuilding of the Temple and tried to discourage the Jews?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Their enemies/Samaritans Amalekites Philistines Moabites