Crazy Talk on China

July 5, 2018 By Peter Leithart

David Goldman is a conservative and a patriot, and is not given to hyperbole. But he describes the current US attitude toward Chinas a “xenophobic” and “ugly,” and accuses fellow conservative Victor Davis Hanson of “crazy talk” about China. In response to Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, “Chinese officials are warning that they are prepared not only for trade war, but for financial, diplomatic and limited military confrontation with the United States, in response to American demands for fundamental changes... Read more

Paul’s Theology of Glory

July 3, 2018 By Peter Leithart

Haley Goranson Jacob’s Conformed to the Image of His Son is an exploration of Paul’s theology of glory. Jacob’s focus is on the meaning of the phrase in her title, drawn from Romans 8. She finds the several common interpretations of the phrase wanting: Conformity to the Son isn’t physical conformity to His resurrection body, not simply moral conformity, not merely sharing in His eschatological radiance, not sharing in His sufferings. Jacob instead develops and defends a “functional” understanding of the... Read more

Bloomsbury in a Secular Age

July 2, 2018 By Peter Leithart

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed, Charles Taylor argues, the development of the “nova.” At that time, “the alternatives open to unbelief are multiplied and enriched.” After World War II, these options are diffused to the whole of Western societies, and this produces a “super-nova” (A Secular Age, 377). These options arose out of the “cross pressure” that is inherent in Western culture after the Enlightenment. On the one hand, the notion of an impersonal, mathematical order to... Read more

Postmodern Times

June 28, 2018 By Peter Leithart

In his contribution to The Future of Hope, John Milbank offers a description of postmodernity and suggests ways for the church to respond. Postmodernism may be a thing of the past; we’re supposed to be in post-postmodernity nowadays. Still, much of what Milbank describes is still with us, and some of it is more intensely with us than when Milbank wrote. In the “postmodern times in which we live, there is no longer any easy distinction to be made between... Read more

Empty Name

June 27, 2018 By Peter Leithart

The Third Word assumes that we carry the Lord’s name. What it prohibits is bearing, carrying, or lifting that name “in vain” or “emptily.” The word can mean “false,” and bearing the name “falsely” is one of the sins that the Lord prohibits here. That does involve speech. This phrasing is used in various places in the Old Testament to describe false oaths. When we swear in the name of the Lord, we call the Lord as a witness to... Read more

The Self-Named

June 26, 2018 By Peter Leithart

Yahweh’s name resembles a human name. But there is a significant difference. Yahweh identifies and names Himself. He didn’t leave Abraham to figure out His name; when Moses asked “What shall I say to Israel when they ask who sent me,” Yahweh answered by giving His name. We don’t formulate our own names. We are given names. We have surnames that come from our parents, and their parents before them, and their parents on back to the first time someone... Read more

What Is A Name?

June 25, 2018 By Peter Leithart

What is a name? A name is a label. It allows us to identify people. That is Sam, that is Sam, Jr; that is Samantha; that is Peter. But a name is more than a label that enables us to identify and distinguish one person from another. It also provides a way to address and communicate with a person. If you see your friend walking on the other side of the road, you call his name to get his attention.... Read more

BenOp Nation?

June 21, 2018 By Peter Leithart

At First Things, Jozef Andrew Kosc describes the continuation of Catholic Christendom in Poland. Poland is “an unabashedly Catholic society is fully integrated into a modern European polity and economy. This society represents an integral and democratic Catholicism, one that has resisted the anti-culture of postmodernism and neoliberal cosmopolitanism. Americans might describe it as a national Benedict Option—though the Poles would reject Rod Dreher’s term, since most have little conception of the aggressive secular liberalism that exists across the rest... Read more

Pixar and the Street

June 21, 2018 By Peter Leithart

My son Christian interviewed Incredibles 2 editor Stephen Schaeffer. It gives a detailed look at the nitty details of making an animated feature. For me, the most interesting parts were about the design of the Pixar studio building: “The Pixar building was designed by Steve Jobs, who wanted to build a workspace that would promote ‘accidental’ encounters between coworkers (according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs). The hope was that these unplanned meetings would result in an explosion of creativity.... Read more