Not Quite Postmodern

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

In his very fine, lucid book, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? (Baker 2006), James KA Smith notes that many postmodern theologies, especially influenced by Derrida’s apophaticism, are anti-dogmatic: “postmodern religious faith eschews knowledge and therefore also eschews the particularity of dogma and doctrine. In other words, according to this line of thinking, postmodern faith sees any particular, determinate religious confession as still tainted by knowledge.” Postmoderns thus advocate a “religion without religion.” As Smith rightly points out, this whole line of... Read more

America’s Military

Last updated on: August 11, 2006 at 2:35 pm By Peter Leithart

Larry Schweikart, America’s Victories: Why the U. S. Wins Wars and Will Win the War on Terror . New York: Sentinel, 2006. 324 pp. Many Americans regard the military as a world apart, a strange world of rank and ritual, tradition and respect, everything that the rest of America is not. Not so, argues University of Dayton history professor Larry Schweikart in this unabashedly patriotic book. America has been successful in war largely because the military has been so, well,... Read more

America’s Military

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:46 pm By Peter Leithart

Good news for NTT

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:43 pm By Peter Leithart

Kavin Rowe reviews a number of texts in New Testament Theology (NTT) in JBL (125:6), and finds that “recent work in NTT has reached the point of consensus on the importance of the OT for NTT: readings of the NT that downplay or even erase the fundamental historical and theological significance of the OT for the New contradict the NT itself to such a degree that they cease to be NTT.” “Marcionite hermeneutics” is on its way out. Further, “there... Read more

Lamentations in Matthew

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

David Moffitt argues in the current issue of JBL (125:2) that “Matthew alludes to Lamentations three times in chs. 23 and 28 of his Gospel (23:35; 27:34; and 27:39). The fact that these allusions come from chs. 2, 3, and 4 of Lamentations, that the allusion to Lam 4:13 resonates throughout the scenes that immediately precede the crucifixion (see Matt 27:19, 24-25), and that the allusion to Lam 2:15 is so closely related thematically to the way Matthew uses Lam... Read more

Machiavelli on honor

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

Machiavelli know what he was about. Though continuing to identify himself with Christianity, he advocated a revival of ancient concepts of virtu , and recognized that one key obstacle was the Christian revaluation of the value of honor. In the midst of numerous distortions of faith and history, he clearly identifies the conflict: “Ancient religion glorified only men who were endowed with worldly glory, such as generals of armies and rulers of republics; our religion has glorified humble and contemplative... Read more

Motivated malignancy

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

In his recent book, Honor: A History , James Bowman suggests that Iago was motivated by concerns of honor. He elevates “good name” above riches, and his stated motive for hating Othello is his suspicion that the Moor slept with his wife is consistent with traditional honor codes: “Iago’s appeal to honor (‘good name’) is also a disguised appeal against the new and more inward standard that would regard not the appearance of infidelity but its moral reality as the... Read more

Class consciousness

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

Lawrence Stone records the following in his classic Crisis of the Aristocracy : “So deep [was] feeling of a fundamental distinction of ranks that gentlemen did not hesitate to behave in ways which would today be considered base and even cowardly. When Lord Herbert of Cherbury was shipwrecked at Dover in 1609 he leaped into the only rescue boat, used his drawn sword to prevent anyone but Sir Thomas Lacy from entering, and then deserted the sinking ship and its... Read more

Death of the author

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:52 pm By Peter Leithart

A hypothesis to explore: What is the connection between the postmodern “death of the author” and higher critical methods of biblical interpretation? Did the dissolution of the text in biblical studies contribute to a dissolution of the author in texts generally? To what extent is Wellhausen responsible for Barthes and Foucault? Read more

Type and Antitype

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

At times, I’ve felt that my polemics against semi-marcionitism in sacramental theology and hermeneutics finds no actual targets. And then I read something like this. In his book on hermeneutics, Louis Berkhof characterizes the difference between type and antitype: “The one represents truth on a lower, the other, the same truth on a higher stage. To pass from the type to the antitype is to ascend from that in which the carnal predominates to that which is purely spiritual, from... Read more