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Peter J. Leithart is President of the Theopolis Institute, Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author, most recently, of Creator (IVP).

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Where Are the Prophets?

From Web Exclusives

The question of my title is not a lament. My question is not, Why are there no more prophets? I have something more literal in mind: Where do we find prophets, and, specifically, where do we find them in the Bible? What is their physical and social location?To judge by popular American perceptions, . . . . Continue Reading »

Why We Play

From First Thoughts

In t he March 26 issue of the New Republic , Leon Kass and Eric Cohen analyzed the moral crisis of professional American sports. While focusing on the steroid scandals that have rocked Major League Baseball, Kass and Cohen argue that biotechnology is only a symptom of a deeper and broader . . . . Continue Reading »

The Pagan West

From Web Exclusives

When it arrived in the world, Christianity announced the end of sacrifice. But in its growth over the long centuries since then, it may have muted its own founding message, a victim of its own success. Does Galatians have much to say to people who have never worried about ritual contagion or the . . . . Continue Reading »

Pentecost and Public Life

From Web Exclusives

What has Pentecost to do with public life? As Paul would say, much in every way.The Bible does not permit us to confine the work of the Spirit to the inner man or to private experience. Through Isaiah (44:3), the Lord promised to pour out water on the land of Israel and his Spirit upon . . . . Continue Reading »

Humanism and Health Care

From Web Exclusives

I got a letter, a signed letter, from Senator Barack Obama the other day¯me and several million other Americans. He’s running for president, you see, and he wants my support in helping him change the political landscape. What concerns people, it seems, is not the "magnitude of our . . . . Continue Reading »

The Nature of America

From the March 2007 Print Edition

From Nature to Experience: The American Search for Cultural Authority , by Roger Lundin, Rowman & Littlefield, 288 pages, $39.95 About midway through From Nature to Experience , Roger Lundin juxtaposes three moments from American history. The first occurs in July 1632, when a crowd of Puritan . . . . Continue Reading »

Leithart: Manners & Modes of Worship

From Web Exclusives

The German historian of manners Norbert Elias begins his book The Civilizing Process by asking how the “modes of behaviour considered typical of people who are civilized in a Western way” came about. Through a survey of etiquette books and other documents dealing with topics like table . . . . Continue Reading »

When East is West

From the May 2005 Print Edition

In an epilogue to his 1998 book, Awakening the Buddha Within, Lama Surya Das, a popular American Buddhist writer and lecturer, surveyed the current state of “Western Buddhism” and identified “ten emerging trends.” They make for curious reading. Western Buddhists are more “lay-oriented” . . . . Continue Reading »