Tyranny of gratitude

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:50 pm By Peter Leithart

Many of Shakespeare’s plays explore the moral and political consequences of ingratitude, but Shakespeare is also cognizant of the tyrannical uses to which the demand for gratitude may be put. Lear is certainly about ingratitude, the “marble-hearted fiend” that infects and distorts the monsters of ingratitude Goneril and Regan, as well as Edmund. But it is equally, perhaps more fundamentally, about the heavy-handed demand for gratitude exercised by Lear himself. Ingratitude is a vice, but the dynamics of gratitude also... Read more

In praise of Pietism

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:44 pm By Peter Leithart

Friedrich Oetinger was a leading German pietist intellectual and theologian, deeply interested in the science of his day. And critical of science and rationalist philosophy as well. Against thinkers who placed a primacy on reason, Oetinger argued that sheer logical clarity is insufficient “for living knowledge.” Living knowledge takes form in common social life: “Fathers are moved without proof to care for their children; love does not demonstrate, but often against reason rends the heart at the beloved’s reproach.” He... Read more

Communion in humor

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:49 pm By Peter Leithart

I tell a joke, and you get it. I include a veiled allusion to, say, Faust in a casual conversation; you catch it; and we exchange a mental wink. Humor provides a pathway into the hermeneutics of texts and communication. It also seems to provide a pathway into the sociology of communication. When the hearer/reader “gets it,” he establishes a sometimes thrilling bond with the author/speaker. God speaks and writes, and the more we “get” the inside jokes, the more... Read more

Keeping in mind

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:46 pm By Peter Leithart

Gadamer notes the ambiguity of “keeping something in mind.” We sometimes hold something in our mental “gaze” in order to knock into it head on. We watch it carefully until we can grab it. But keeping in mind can also be a form of forgetfulness. We might also keep something in mind so that we can skirt past it ever so tactfully. Read more

Mysticism and culture

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:09 am By Peter Leithart

Gadamer notes that the concept of Bildung (culture) has its origins in medieval and baroque mysticism, and continues to carry a mystical connotation when it begins to be used of the cultivated humanness. Von Humboldt, for instance, says “when in our language we say Bildung, we mean something both higher and more inward” than Kultur, “namely the disposition of mind which, from the knowledge and the feeling of the total intellectual and moral endeavor, flows harmoniously into sensibility and character.”... Read more

Preferences

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:04 am By Peter Leithart

Responding to Isaac Watts’s claim that we love things purely out of our choice, Jonathan Edwards deftly isolated the problems of that position: When we choose one thing over another, we are clearly preferring that thing, but “that the mind sets a higher value on one thing than another, is not, in the first place, the fruit of its setting a higher value on that thing.” If that were the case, then the choice would be purely sui generis ,... Read more

Glory and craft

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:42 pm By Peter Leithart

In English, Psalm 19:2 is arranged in a neat parallel structure: A. The heavens B. tell C. the glory of God. A’. The firmament B’. proclaims C’. the work of his hands. In Hebrew, the verse is chiastic: A. The heavens B. are telling C. the glory of God. C’. The work of his hands B’. announcing A’. the firmament. Let’s think about this. (more…) Read more

New Year’s Sermon

Last updated on: December 25, 2006 at 7:35 am By Peter Leithart

INTRODUCTION We often have a problem with time. We get used to things the way they are, and we want them to stay that way. We are nostalgic for what seems a happier time of our lives. Living in time means living in uncertainty about what the next year, or the next minute, will bring; and we crave certainty. How do we live well in a world where “there’s a time for this” and “a time for that”? THE TEXT... Read more

New Year’s Sermon

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:09 am By Peter Leithart

Christmas Eve Sermon

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:49 pm By Peter Leithart

Matthew 2 has all the elements of an exodus story. There is a murderous king, who slaughtering Jewish babies. There is a infant who will be Israel’s future deliverer, saved from the murderous king so He can later return to save His people and lead them to the Promised land. There is an exodus from the land of the murderous king. There is a sojourn in Egypt and a return from Egypt. Matthew actually quotes a line from Hosea that... Read more