Horror for Kids

Last updated on: October 28, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Terrence Rafferty calls filmmaker Guillermo del Toro the “Master of Highbrow Horror” (The Atlantic). He traces del Toro’s aesthetic to a childlike mix of fear and fascination: “Toro’s work isn’t simply the something’s-out-to-get-you feeling of conventional scare pictures. It’s fear mixed with fascination, a childlike wonder at the strange shapes reality can take. In the poem ‘Children Selecting Books in a Library,’ Randall Jarrell writes, ‘Their tales are full of sorcerers and ogres / Because their lives are: the capricious... Read more

Running from Boundaryless Love

Last updated on: October 28, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Born to Run is an anthem of escape, seemingly an exodus from the confinements of small-town America: “H-Oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back / It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap / We gotta get out while we’re young / ‘Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run.” Springsteen’s recent memoir shows that it’s more complicated than that. Reviewing the memoir in The Atlantic, David Brooks describes the world Springsteen was born into... Read more

Smile!

Last updated on: October 28, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Matthew Hutson reports in The Atlantic about technical developments that will make it impossible to know when we’re on camera: Many of the cameras that can be pointed at us today are easy to spot. But researchers are developing recording devices that can hide in plain sight, some by mimicking animals. A company called AeroVironment has produced a drone that looks and flies like a hummingbird. Engineers at Carnegie Mellon, NASA, and elsewhere have designed ‘snakebots’ that can maneuver in... Read more

Paedocommunion, the Gospel, and the Church, I

Last updated on: October 27, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Should young children receive the Lord’s Supper? Should we practice paedo-communion? Before we address the question of paedocommunion, we must specify both what the question is and what sort of question it is. First, what is the question of paedocommunion? It is not in essence a question about the age of admission to the Lord’s table. Some who do not adopt the paedocommunion position would admit toddlers as young as a year-and-a-half. If, hypothetically, some means were invented to gauge... Read more

Unity and Uniformity

Last updated on: October 27, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In various writings advocating efforts to promote the unity of the church, I haven’t always made clear that unity is not the same as uniformity. This is a brief clarification. It’s natural, and unobjectionable, that churches manifest the cultural variations of peoples that constitute them. German churches will sing and preach in German, Korean churches in Korean, tribal peoples of South America in their tribal languages. Church music will reflect cultural variations. Even if composers are attuned to the heritage... Read more

Liturgy as Military Banquet

Last updated on: October 26, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Israel gathers at Hebron to make David king (1 Chronicles 11–12). There are the usual king-making actions—anointing, covenant-making, mutual declarations and pledges. It is also a festive occasion, a three-day feast of eating and drinking (12:38–40). As I’ve noted before, four beasts bring seven types of food. It’s a military banquet: “all Israel” comes to Hebron represented by the “men of war, who could draw up in battle formation” (12:38). All Israel is a host, but we don’t see them... Read more

Shepherd of Israel

Last updated on: October 25, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

1 Chronicles 11–12 form a unit, framed by references to David’s coronation ceremony at Hebron: A. Gathering at Hebron, conquest of Jerusalem, 11:1–10 B. David’s followers while a fugitive, 11:11–47 B’. David’s host at Ziklag, 12:1–22 A’. Coronation festival at Hebron, 12:23–40 11:1-10 is itself framed by references to “all Israel” (vv. 1, 10), the “word of Yahweh” (vv. 3, 10), and anointing/making David king (v. 3, 10). The B–B’ sequence includes a flashback to a time when David was... Read more

Gospel of the Broken Wall

Last updated on: October 25, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Christians often oppose truth and unity. Evangelicals are inclined to leave unity to the mushy mainline, to eclectic ecumenists, and devote themselves to the rock-hard truth, regardless of its divisiveness. The New Testament doesn’t permit this opposition. The rock-hard gospel truth is a truth about unity. The gospel announces the fulfillment of God’s plan to reconcile Adamic humanity with God. At the same time, it announces the fulfillment of God’s plan to reconcile Babelic humanity with itself. From one man... Read more

Reformational Catholicism, A Wish-List

Last updated on: October 24, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In a 2014 piece published in First Things, I offered a “wish list” for Protestant churches, a checklist for a future catholic Protestantism. The wish list doesn’t cover everything. It doesn’t mention those things that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, already do, often exceedingly well, things like missions and evangelism and personal discipleship and mercy ministries. It gives some concreteness to my claim that the “future of Protestantism is a catholic one.” What kind of churches might we dream of? Churches like... Read more

Sons of the Right Hand

Last updated on: October 21, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Bede (Latin Commentaries on Revelation, 133-5) interprets the list of Israel’s tribes in Revelation 7 by etymologizing the names. The list forms a sequence, from Judah to Benjamin. Judah means “confession or praise” and is placed first because “before the beginning of confession, no one attains the heights of good works, and unless we should renounce evil through confession, we do not live by those works that are just.” Reuben means “seeing the son,” and “Reuben comes after Judah, since... Read more

True or False: The church in Jerusalem sent Barnabas to investigate what was happening in Antioch.