Peter J. Leithart is President of the Theopolis Institute, Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author, most recently, of Creator (IVP).
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Peter J. Leithart
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The Word and the Rule of Faith
Evangelicalism is awash in the 3Rs: retrieval, renewal, and ressourcement. As Michael Allen and Scott Swain explain in Reformed Catholicity, recently published by Baker Academic press, various movements have emerged sharing the conviction that “the path to theological renewal lies in retrieving resources from the Christian tradition.” In their view, these efforts have been haphazard, and their book sketches a “programmatic assessment of what it means to retrieve the catholic tradition . . . on the basis of Protestant theological and ecclesiological principles.” Continue Reading »
Salt of the Earth
“Salt of the earth” is one of the best-known phrases in the Bible, but it’s more enigmatic than we realize. Salt has many qualities, and it’s not clear which one Jesus is highlighting. Does Jesus want disciples to preserve the world? Are disciples as necessary to the world as salt is to life? Are disciples the seasoning on a main course dished up by someone else? Continue Reading »
We Have Never Been Modern
Bruno Latour’s 1993 We Have Never Been Modern is a neglected masterpiece. Its argument is compressed, the terminology idiosyncratic. Latour is witty, ironic, and funniest when he’s outraged. It’s not an easy book, but it’s worth the effort. As a diagnosis of us “moderns,” it’s more penetrating, and rings truer, than many better-known works. Continue Reading »
Spirit in Flesh
God has come to the human race many times and in many ways. He came to form Adam from the dust, and he came walking in the garden after Adam sinned. He came to deliver Israel from Egypt, descended on Sinai to give the Law, and led Israel through the wilderness into the land. He came in judgment when his people polluted the holy land, and he came to stir the heart of Cyrus to let them go. Biblical history is filled with advents of God. Continue Reading »
Advent of Unity
John famously begins his Gospel with a piece of theology: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Matthew starts with a genealogy. John celebrates Advent with a hymn, Matthew with a list. For John, Jesus is the Word of creation in human flesh. For Matthew, he is a name. Continue Reading »
Pastors Don’t Need to Enter Politics—They’re Already In It
A friend is encouraging pastors to run for political office. Like everyone, he’s worried about America’s future, and he’d like to see more experienced Christian leaders in public office. It’s a good ol’ American tradition that goes back to the Founding, and it will bear fruit and frustration, generate success and cynicism, in roughly equal measure. Continue Reading »
Culture War, Spiritual War
So now we’re debating whether or not two men or two women can get married. How, over the course of less than two decades, did we become blind to something as obvious as the difference between friendship and marriage? Continue Reading »
The Story of Pastor Tom Clark
Pastor Tom Clark is dying. His esophageal cancer was diagnosed at the beginning of 2012, and after several rounds of chemo, radiation treatments, and surgery, the doctors have given up. Six weeks ago, they told him he had only a few weeks left. Continue Reading »
Sacramental Economy
Money is something of a mystery. Classical economics views money as a commodity that is selected as a medium of exchange and standard of value, which enables a society to grow from a barter system to a more complex and efficient economy. As Ole Bjerg points out in Making Money, a recent excursion into the philosophy of money, the classical theory leaves some puzzles in its wake. For starters, it doesn’t fit known historical facts. Anthropologists have yet to find a pure barter economy. Media of exchange always seem to be there already. Continue Reading »
Remember the Prisoners
“Nobody criticizes us. We have no enemies,” Warden Burl Cain tells me as the servers load our plates with Big Lou’s brisket, ribs, chicken, grits-n-shrimp casserole, and baked beans. “I have the number for the head of the local ACLU on my cell phone, and she has my number on hers.” Continue Reading »
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