In Defense of Pluralism

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

The church’s response to Copernicanism is often cited as a textbook example of the tyranny of faith over investigation and reason. Dogmatically committed to geocentrism, the church wanted to shut the door on alternative explanations. The truth, Owen Barfield argues, is very nearly the opposite: “When the ordinary man hears that the Church told Galileo that he might teach Copernicanism as a hypothesis which saved all the celestial phenomena satisfactorily, but ‘not as being the truth,’ he laughs. But this... Read more

Fart club

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:41 pm By Peter Leithart

We think our popular culture is as crass as it comes, but in 18th century London, in Cripplegate, there was a fart club, where, as Kenneth Baker says, “the members met once a month to give of their best.” The much-maligned Victorian Age was the great cleansing of British culture, which was inspired in significant measure by the Evangelical revival. Read more

Sermon Outline

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:01 am By Peter Leithart

INTRODUCTION John begins his first epistle where he begins his gospel, announcing the incarnation of the Word who was from the beginning. Through this incarnation, John and his readers have fellowship with the Father and Son. THE TEXT “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life . . . .” (1 John 1:1-4). (more…) Read more

Light and Division

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

The original formless-and-void creation was dark. God created light, and saw it was good. We might think that the creation of light itself would be sufficient to divide light and darkness, but that’s not the way Genesis tells the story. It takes a distinct act to separate light and darkness. This is the pattern of new creation as well: The light shines into the darkness. Then, in a distinct act, God separates light and darkness. Jesus comes into the world... Read more

Chemical reactions

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:48 pm By Peter Leithart

Words are not hard BBs of meaning. Nor are words like the atoms of ancient atomic theory – impermeable bits of matter. Words are like atoms as understood in modern physics, taking on new properties when they are in the vicinity of other words. Or, if you like, words are like your fickle friends who change their behavior and likes and dislikes depending on what crowd they’re in. My wife is not fickle, but her accent changes depending on who... Read more

Eucharistic meditation

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

1 John 1:6-7: If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. I had suggested that John uses the imagery of light and darkness primarily to describe two different periods of time. Darkness refers to... Read more

Irrationality of Islam

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:45 pm By Peter Leithart

Pope Benedict’s remarks on Islam have sparked violent protests, and many have noted the irony: Muslims violently protests the Pope’s claim that they practice a violent religion. But the Pope’s main point in the address was about the detachment of God’s word from human reason; he traced efforts to deHellenize Christianity from the late medieval period through the modern, and claimed that the resulting severing of faith and reason led to the exclusion of theology from the university and made... Read more

Exhortation

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:40 pm By Peter Leithart

I’m wearing a green stole around my neck, and there’s a green tablecloth on the table. Why is that? For starters, these are part of the glorification of worship. Every place of worship in Scripture – the tabernacle, the temple, the heavenly court in Revelation – is adorned, and that’s what we’re trying to capture here. The table is set for a marriage feast, a banquet, and it should be adorned appropriately. The stole adds color to my white robe,... Read more

World Cities

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:48 pm By Peter Leithart

Featherstone: “One important site where the various flows of people, goods, technology, information and images cross and intermingle is the world city. World cities are the sites in which we find the juxtaposition of the rich and the poor, the new middle-class professionals and the homeless, and a variety of other ethnic, class and traditional identifications . . . . Yet many of the cultural forces associated with this process – the postmodern emphasis upon the mixing of codes, pastiche,... Read more

On the other hand….

Last updated on: September 14, 2006 at 11:36 am By Peter Leithart

In certain respects, Continental philosophy has a strong “Protestant” thrust: As Critchley describes it, the philosophical vocation is to produce crisis in a world where the crisis is that there is no recognition of crisis. Through critique of everyday praxis, the philosopher aims to create crisis that will lead to emacipation from current praxis. Every Continental philosopher is a Luther. But, if the earlier post has any value, perhaps it’s better to say that every Continental philosopher is a Borromeo. Read more