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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Intrusive Third Parties
In the October 2011 issue of First Things, editor R. R. Reno ponders why it is so difficult for our culture “to identify a real difference between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples.” Relaxed sexual mores and the erosion of traditional male-female roles have destabilized marriage. So, Reno emphasized, has the decoupling of sex from fertility. It is especially here that an effective defense of marriage today requires not only political effort, but “a renewal of our moral and social imaginations.” … Continue Reading »
Of Mystics and Activists
Derived from the Greeks, the contrast between the contemplative and active life early on became a Christian commonplace. It was systematized by Thomas Aquinas, who regarded the distinction as both “fitting” and “adequate.” Fitting, because each human being, as a rational being, occupies himself with what is most delightful to him, whether that is the pursuit of knowledge or a life of active service. Adequate, because Jacob had two wives and no more, and Lazarus had only two sisters… . Continue Reading »
Does the Sun Rise?
About this time each year, I survey my theology students on the question, “Does the sun rise?” Most say, No. This year, one said it’s “super-obvious” that the sun does not rise. They fall into nervous silence when I insist that it does. The occasion for my survey is an annual discussion of Galileo’s famous 1615 letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. During a dinner party with the Grand Duchess, Benedictine friar Benedetto Castelli defended the new heliocentric theory and refuted the Scriptural arguments that another member of the party advanced in favor of geocentricity… . Continue Reading »
Hamann’s Century
Strange things are afoot among the intellectuals. Neo-Marxists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri see the world divided into oppressive Empire and the resistant Multitude, and take inspiration from Saint Augustine’s two cities. Slavoj Zizek, who hailed Hardt and Negri’s 2000 book Empire as the “Communist Manifesto of the twenty-first century,” can’t stop quoting Chesterton. You can’t join the club of Continental deep thinkers nowadays unless you have published a book on the apostle Paul. Not that any of them actually believe any of it, but radicals have got religion… . Continue Reading »
God Is Still Back
When nineteen jihadist hijackers slammed two airplanes into the World Trade Center towers and another into the Pentagon ten years ago, they saw themselves as heroes of an apocalyptic holy war. For a moment, it seemed that they had instead given new life to secular modernity. During the decades preceding 9/11, religion of an intense variety made a surprising comeback. Pentecostalism blazed through South America, an exotic stew of indigenous Christianities bubbled up in Africa, Chinese churches grew at an astonishing rate, Evangelicals had political clout in the U.S., Islamic fundamentalism was on the rise. As the Economist’s John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge put it in the title of their 2009 book, “God is back.” … Continue Reading »
A Cheer and a Half for Biblicism
“Biblicist” is a fighting word. It’s what Catholics call “bibliolatrous” Protestants, what liberal Protestants used to call Fundamentalists, and what moderate Evangelicals like to call immoderate Evangelicals. It is a word more bandied than explained. One of the strengths of Christian Smith’s recent The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture (Brazos, 2011) is his precision in identifying the object of his attack… . Continue Reading »
Jesus and the “Ogre”
It’s become one of the most-quoted passages to emerge from the New Atheists, Richard Dawkins’s tirade against the God of Israel: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser… .” Less well-known is Dawkins’s approval of Jesus, who is “from a moral point of view … a huge improvement over the cruel ogre of the Old Testament.” … Continue Reading »
Torah and Social Justice
Until recently, few evangelicals had much to say about “social justice.” Leftish evangelicals like Ron Sider, Jim Wallis, and Tony Campolo, along with Evangelicals for Social Action and Sojourners, virtually cornered the market. Other evangelicals wrote on inequality, race, and poverty, but mostly in reaction… . Continue Reading »
The Very Conventional Mrs. Palin
One would have thought that no Republican would be able to drive pundits toward the edge of sanity as deftly as George W. Bush used to, but Sarah Palin has surpassed him. She is as hated by the Left as viscerally as Bill and Hillary were by the Right. She’s the latest in a string of conservative targets: Reagan, Bush, now Palin”all cast successively as rightwing bumpkins du jour… . Continue Reading »
Solicitous Nation
Modern American Presidents have a rare predilection for crusades. Wilson sent American troops into World War I to “make the world safe for democracy,” and a few days after 9/11 George Bush outbid Wilson by declaring that history calls us to “rid the world of evil.” British Prime Ministers warn darkly of iron curtains and bolster the nation with stiff-lip realism about defending civilization. That’s too modest for American Presidents, who give their military engagements apocalyptic labels like “Operation Infinite Justice,” the original name for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. … Continue Reading »
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