Mad Hatter’s Tea

Last updated on: September 21, 2006 at 4:02 pm By Peter Leithart

At the Retreat organized by the asylum reformer Samuel Tuke, the inmates would occasionally enjoy social occasions where the rules of etiquette would be strictly observed. In Tuke’s own description, they would “dress in their best clothes, and vie with each other in politeness and propriety. The best fare is provided, and the visitors are treated with all the attention of strangers. The evening generally passes with the greatest harmony and enjoyment. It rarely happens that any unpleasant circumstance occurs;... Read more

Mad Hatter’s Tea

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am By Peter Leithart

Pietist baptism

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

Johann Arndt (1555-1621), one of theleaders of German Pietism, wrote of baptism: “This is the true new birth and the new creature that appears before God’s face, pure and holy, cleaned and purified through the blood of Christ and the Holy Spirit without any blemish. So perfect is this washing in the blood of Christ that the Bridegroom says: You are most beautiful my friend.” Elsewhere: “Dear Lord Jesus Christ, you who have . . . instituted the holy sacrament... Read more

Baptismal Regeneration

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:47 pm By Peter Leithart

In sorting through questions about efficacy of baptism, it’s important to realize that terms are used differently by various theologians. Chemnitz, for instance, claims that baptism has a twofold effect, “regeneration and renewal.” The very fact that he describes these as distinct effects should alert us to the fact that he’s not using “regeneration” in the typical post-Reformation Reformed sense. When he explains the first effect of baptism, that point becomes even clearer: “sins are washed away in remission through... Read more

Water and the Word

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

Baptism is made by word and water, Luther says. But the word is not the word of the minister that blesses the water, but the authorizing word of Jesus: “God’s word beside and with the water, which is not something we have invented or dreamed up, but is rather the Word of Christ, who said ‘Go into all the world and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ When these... Read more

Life in Common

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

The purpose of the proclamation of the Word of Life, John says, is to extend the fellowship of the apostles to include others; and this means to include others within the community – the sharing of things, and particularly the sharing of life – that the apostles have with the Father and the Son. For first-century Jews, the notion of “fellowship,” “companionship,” or “communion” with God could well have been jarring. As the TDNT points out, the OT never uses... Read more

A few notes on 1 John 1

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:45 pm By Peter Leithart

1) This is a oddly rambling opening to a letter. It starts with a relative pronoun, and doesn’t get to a finite verb until verse 3. Plus, it leaves a number of things initially unexplained. “That which” – what does this refer to? We don’t know for a while. “From the beginning” – of what? Of everything? Perhaps the point has something to do with the manifestation of something hidden. That is what John has to proclaim – the manifestation... Read more

Really Lost

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

Last year, we got the first season of Lost on DVD and were instantly hooked. These guys sure know how to hold an audience. But for me the hold is weakening as we begin watching the second seson, as it becomes increasingly clear that all these people escaped from a Sidney psyche ward. Flight 815 was a ship of fools. (more…) Read more

In Praise of Coffee

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

An early modern document celebrates the purifying qualities of coffee: Coffee is good for “fat persons whose thickened humors circulate with difficulty.” And, it reduces impurities and generally clears out the system: “it restores the stomach, consumes its superfluous humidity, dissipates wind, dissolves the phlegm of the bowels, where it performs a mild abstersion, and what is most considerable, prevents the fumes from rising to the head and consequently reduces the aches and pains customarily suffered there; finally, it affords... Read more

Descartes’s exorcism

Last updated on: September 20, 2006 at 4:41 pm By Peter Leithart

Madness in what Foucault calls the “classical period” is conceived as a dazzlement – the madman is darkened with excessive light. In this context, “the Cartesian formula of doubt is certainly the great exorcism of madness. Descartes closes his eyes and plugs up his ears the better to see the true brightness of essential daylight; thus he is secured against the dazzlement of the madman who, opening his eyes, sees only night, and not seeing at all, believes he sees... Read more