Imperial America

June 22, 2011 By Peter Leithart

Back in 1975, Richard Neuhaus wrote in Time Toward Home that “America is an imperial power,” elaborating that “Suppose we could drop from our history all our self-images, ideals, notions of destiny and everything else that makes up what we have called America’s public piety. America would still be an imperial power. In any conceivable scenario short of nuclear annihilation, the United States will for the foreseeable future be among the strongest, maybe the strongest, power on earth. The ways... Read more

Judaism and Globalization

June 21, 2011 By Peter Leithart

In his American Providence: A Nation with a Mission , Stephen Webb describes Arnold Toynbee as a “prophet” who foretold the rise of religious pluralism that inhabits Religious Studies departments and is the religious drive behind globalization. Toynbee saw that religion was the central impulse of history, but he believed that “all religions are basically the same” and that all would converge toward a global super-religion. Echoing Kant, Toynbee thought that Christianity might be the harbinger of this new global... Read more

Catholic Reformation

June 21, 2011 By Peter Leithart

Subtract the Hegelianism, and Nicholas Boyle ( Who Are We Now?: Christian Humanism and the Global Market from Hegel to Heaney ) gives a profound insight into recent church history: “The theology of the spirit, which Hegel rightly saw as the distinctive new impetus which the Reformation gave to human development, the radical following-through of the believe that God speaks in and through us, has more work to do in the Catholic Church than further the charismatic revival. The work... Read more

Disestablishment

June 21, 2011 By Peter Leithart

In his Against Establishment: An Anglican Polemic , Theo Hobson points to some hidden reasons why some fear disestablishment for the Church of England: “In a permissive society, the established Church is necessarily a permissive Church; otherwise it advocates social policies at odds with the law of the land and becomes a revolutionary sect. This is why many liberals fear disestablishment, despite knowing in their hearts it is right: it would jeopardize the Church’s commitment to the liberal values of... Read more

Paul’s Resume

June 21, 2011 By Peter Leithart

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul gives his apostolic resume, his reason for boasting, and it is mostly a catalog of suffering and opposition. It is also a rhetorically and symbolically rich catalog. He begins with a fourfold summary of his privileges and status, and at each point he emphasizes that he holds the same status as the false apostles against whom he fights (vv. 22-23). He gives a triple designation for the Jews – Hebrew, Israelite, seed of Abraham (perhaps... Read more

Paul’s Resume

June 21, 2011 By Peter Leithart

The God who Risks

June 20, 2011 By Peter Leithart

Von Balthasar, not Greg Boyd, writes: “a world that is full of risks can only be created within the Son’s processio (prolonged as missio ); this shows that every ‘risk’ on God’s part is undergirded by . . . the power-less power of the divine self-giving. We cannot say that the Father is involved in ‘risk’ by allowing his Son to go to the Cross, as if only then could he be sure of the earnestness of the Son’s indebtedness... Read more

Stage and screen

June 20, 2011 By Peter Leithart

Francesca Murphy notes the difference between stage and screen acting ( God Is Not a Story: Realism Revisited ): “Our bodies are the locus of our unity or singularity; You and I are whole or one because each of us is a certain physical space. And so, the stage actor uses her body to make her character a unity, to as to project an integrated ‘stage image’ throughout a play. On the other hand, the projected image of the screen... Read more

Wedding sermon

June 20, 2011 By Peter Leithart

John 15 (ESV) 1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither... Read more

Fruit in its season

June 16, 2011 By Peter Leithart

Luther explained the simile of Psalm 1, which compares the righteous man to a tree that “yields fruit it in its season,” with another simile, a comparison of Christian life to a loving marriage: “When a husband and wife really love one another, have pleasure in each other, and thoroughly believe in their love,” Luther asked, “who teaches them how they are to behave one to another, what they are to do or not to do, say or not to... Read more