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
Web Exclusives Articles
Historical and Theological Humanity
Christianity has resources of skepticism that would make Nietzsche and Foucault blush. Read a few pages of Augustine or C. S. Lewis, and squirm as they surgically strip away the layers of self-justification and self-deceit and self-righteousness that you didn’t know you had wrapped on. They are true masters of suspicion. … Continue Reading »
Pentecostal Enlightenment
Western Christians celebrated Pentecost last Sunday, while Eastern Christians look ahead to Pentecost in late June. It’s the season of the Spirit, a time to muse on the politics of Pentecost. When Israel’s prophets predict the future coming of the Spirit, their next thought is almost always about the renewal of creation … Continue Reading »
What’s Wrong with “Family Values”
In a recent talk at the Wheaton Theology Conference, the Kenyan Anglican Archbishop David Gitari told of a Christian ministry that hired an ambulance to assist employees at a factory where injuries were being reported regularly. Eventually, someone had the bright idea of finding out why so many accidents were happening in the first place. … Continue Reading »
Figuring Reunion
Ephraim Radner is one of those rare theologians whose work can be described as “relentless.” His most recent book, A Brutal Unity, may be his most relentless yet. Radner dismantles every self-congratulatory, self-protective ecclesiology that blinds Christians to what is self-evident to everyone else: The Church is shattered… . Continue Reading »
Science Beyond Materialism
Rupert Sheldrake is a heretic, and he has the second-degree burns to prove it. On January 13, Sheldrake, a research biochemist trained at Cambridge, gave a TEDx talk at Whitechapel where he proposed to turn what he calls the “ten core beliefs” of science from assumed dogmas into questions… . Continue Reading »
They Call This Friday Good
For Judah, the exile to Babylon is a national death. Once Judah had a king, but now he’s a prisoner in Babylon. Once Judah possessed a land, but now it’s depopulated. Once there was a temple in Jerusalem, but Nebuchadnezzar roared through and left charred ruins behind. Everything that made Judah a nation”king, temple, people, palace, power”is gone… . Continue Reading »
The World Can’t Hear Us on Marriage
Preaching to the deaf is a venerable prophetic vocation. Isaiah was told that his prophecies to the “dull of hearing” would only make them duller, and Jeremiah was warned that the “foolish and senseless” of Judah “have ears but do not hear.” Jesus quoted these passages to explain why he taught in parables, and so did Paul to explain resistance from Jews of Rome… . Continue Reading »
Religious Change in the Middle East
Alarming reports have been coming in for years: Christianity is being expelled from the Middle East. According to Walter Russell Mead, more than half of the Christians in Iraq have fled the country since 2003. Today it’s happening in Syria. Swedish journalist Nuri Kino reports on a “silent exodus of Christians from Syria” in the face of “kidnappings and rapes.” … Continue Reading »
Shakespeare for Lent
Lent is a time of renunciation and fasting, spiritual striving, self-examination, contrition, and penitence. It seems a grim and black season of self-accusation. But that’s all superficial. Lent is better understood as a season of Christian comedy. It’s not the glum waiting before the comedy of resurrection begins. Lent is the darkened path that winds toward the rising sun… . Continue Reading »
Not Peace, But a Sword
President Obama is convinced that liberals have won the culture war, and he aims to leverage that victory to force a transformation of the Republican party. In a New Republic interview published earlier this week, he noted that attitudes are changing “in the country as a whole around LGBT issues and same-sex marriage” and that this poses a challenge to Republicans. Some Republicans will “embrace” the change, but “there’s a big chunk of their constituency that is going to be deeply opposed to that.” … Continue Reading »
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