Frederick Turner

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:42 pm By Peter Leithart

Much of the poetry of Frederick Turner’s Paradise is traditionally rhymed and metered, and employs the veiled self-referentiality of earlier generations of poets (“the poet” appears in a number of poems). The themes of the poetry are also very traditional, focusing, as Turner points out in the concluding essay, on the conflict between earthly and heavenly baradises. It is a sign of the times that such conservative and traditional poetry can come off sounding radical, as in Turner’s paeon to... Read more

Worship and Life

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

Philip Kenneson has some helpful things to say about the relationship of worship and the rest of life in his contribution to the Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics . He challenges the notion that worship is a specifically religious activity, a view embodied in the modern assumption that the practices of worship “are routinely circumscribed not only physically by taking place in certain ‘holy spaces,’ but also intellectually and morally by finding their rightful place in the so-called ‘religious sphere.’... Read more

Luther on Law and Grace

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

I posted this a short time before my web site went down, and I don’t believe it’s been restored. David Yeago offers a stimulating discussion of Luther?s views on gospel and law in a 1998 article in The Thomist . Yeago challenges modern Luther interpreters who suggest that Luther, in antinomian fashion, separated grace from moral order, arguing instead that Luther completely integrates the two: ?The morality that grace terminates, the law that the gospel overcomes, is precisely and specifically... Read more

And now, a word from our sponsors

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

I’ve been asked to post this ad for New St. Andrews, and since they be the big boss, I’d better comply. New St. Andrews College and Christ Church-Moscow seek a joint music instructor and church music director for fall 2005. Position includes teaching yearlong Music Colloquium and elective courses, conducting the College’s and church’s choirs, and serving as church music director. Master’s degree and choral conducting experience required, preferably at the collegiate level. Salary and benefits are competitive, depending on... Read more

Worship and World

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

More lecture notes. INTRODUCTION Modern life can be characterized in many ways, but one of the central themes of modernity is that it is a revolt against ritual. This is particularly true of modern Christianity. As Hennig Graf Reventlow showed in his study of the rise of modern biblical interpretation, modern theology arises from a Marcionite viewpoint that rejects the Old Testament and denigrates ritual and sacraments. Christianity, for both liberal and evangelical forms of modern Christianity, is a simple,... Read more

Corporate Worship

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:51 pm By Peter Leithart

A set of lecture notes for an upcoming lecture on the corporate character of worship. Some of this material has been posted previously on this site. INTRODUCTION Sometimes, Christians think that the transition from old to new is a transition from a corporate form of religion to a more individualistic form of religion. In fact, something like the opposite is the case. An Israelite would often bring an offering to the tabernacle or temple, and offer it as an individual... Read more

Booth on Rhetoric

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

Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Rhetoric: The Quest for Effective Communication (London: Blackwell, 2004), 206pp. Since the 1961 publication of his now-classic book, The Rhetoric of Fiction , Wayne Booth, an Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Chicago, has been one of the nation’s leading authorities on rhetoric. As Booth sees it, rhetoric is not confined to speechifying. It is all-pervasive, in fiction as well as in the “rhetrickery” of the media, education, and politics. The Rhetoric... Read more

Baptism Meditation, April 10

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

1 Corinthians 12:12-13: ?Even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.?E Paul?s statement here to the Corinthians highlights two important features of baptism. First, it tells us explicitly that baptism... Read more

Another Eucharistic Meditation

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

1 Kings 22:26-27: ?Then the king of Israel said, ?Take Micaiah and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king?s son; and say, ?Thus says the king, ?Put this man in prison, and feed him the bread of affliction and the water of affliction until I return safely.???E As we noted in the exhortation this morning, Micaiah, the prophet of Yahweh, disappears from this story into prison, and never returns. With him, the word... Read more

Eucharistic Meditation, Second Sunday of Easter

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:39 pm By Peter Leithart

1 Kings 22: Micaiah said, I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd, and the Lord said, these have no master; let them return every man to his house in peace. Micaiah prophesies of Israel’s defeat at Ramoth-gilead, and of Ahab’s death. Ahab was the shpeherd of Israel, and his death leaves Israel shepherdless, wandering, scattered on the hills with no shepherd to gather them and bring them home. But, strangely, Micaiah says... Read more