Movies, Stories, and Redemption

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

“Movies,” writes Brian Godawa, a Christian screenwriter, “may be about story, but those stories are finally, centrally, crucially, primarily MOSTLY about redemption.” Godawa uses the theologically loaded term “redemption” intentionally, but he recognizes that many contemporary movies present a distinctly secular gospel of redemption. For some movies, redemption comes through making individual decisions that flaut social and religion conventions or morality. For others, redemption is no more than learning to live with dignity in an absurd and chaotic world. Godawa’s... Read more

Sermon Outline, February 1

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

Sermon outline for Feb 1: The Days of the Son of Man, Luke 17:11-37 INTRODUCTION Jesus’ mission was to proclaim “the kingdom of God” (Luke 4:43; 8:1). By this, He meant that God was taking control of the world through Him, and putting a sinful and shattered world back together. Through His preaching and healing, Jesus enacts this restoration. In Luke 17, He makes it clear that God’s power as king is already at work, and that it will come... Read more

Faith and Heresy

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

Barth says that the conflict of faith and heresy is far more serious and important than the conflicts between faith and unbelief. Unbelief cannot be taken with seriousness, he says, because we believe in the forgiveness of sins. But heresy is taken seriously to the extent that it has the form of faith without the content. Between faith and heresy there is “a headlong collision such as can only take place between contending brothers.” Then he adds: “The much vaunted... Read more

Chaucer and Tragedy

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

Henry Ansgar Kelly (pp. 139-140 of Chaucerian Tragedy ) makes this important historical comment at the end of his analysis of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde : “The selection introduction of Aristotelian criteria of excellent in tragedy has been a source of untold confusion in modern discussions of tragedy. For Aristotle, the ‘raw material’ to be classified, that is, the mass of plays or stories already categorized as tragedies, was distinguished by ‘seriousness,’ and included a large number of cases with... Read more

The Etymology of the “F-word”

Last updated on: January 28, 2004 at 11:47 am By Peter Leithart

While I’m on that subject: I’ve often wondered about the etymology of the “f-word.” The Shorter Oxford says that the derivation is unknown. I have a theory: Medieval courtly love poetry (such as the Roman de la Rose ) traced the development of courtship through several stages. The stage of consummation was designated by the Latin word factum , which means “the deed.” Read more

The Etymology of the “F-word”

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:56 pm By Peter Leithart

Cahill on Euripedes

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

In his beautifully written tribute to the ancient Greeks. Thomas Cahill interprets Euripides’ Medea as a cautionary tale to aristocratic Athenian men. The question he poses to the audience is: “What could drive a woman to such extremes that she would kill her own children.” Cahill’s summary of Euripides’ target is revealing (and at least R-rated, for you kids out there): “For the strutting aristoi of the symposia, the nature of life was obvious: you gave it or you got... Read more

The Bible and Other Tragedies

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:56 pm By Peter Leithart

In a book written in the late 1370s, the surgeon John Arderne prescribed “the Bible and other tragedies” as remedies. These books were good sources, as Henry Ansgar Kelly explains in summarizing Arderne’s point, “for humorous stories of a good and decent kind that doctors can use to provoke their patients to laughter.” Unfortunately, Kelly does not indicate what parts of the Bible Arderne specifically had in mind. Read more

Barth on Faith

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

Barth defines faith as the “determination of human action by the being of the Church and therefore by Jesus Christ, by the gracious address of God to man.” While there may be weaknesses with this, there are several commendable things about the definition: 1) It does not polarize faith and action, as if living by faith were a kind of divine slothfulness or quietude. Humans are always acting all the time, and to play faith off against action implies that... Read more

Theology as Science Again

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:51 pm By Peter Leithart

If, as Barth says, theology NEED not be part of the genus “science,” why has it been so designated? It appears that the impetus is an effort to achieve precisely the things that Barth says it does NOT need from science. Barth says, “As regards method, [theology] has nothing to learn from [other sciences],” but a theologian who wants to present theology as a science does so to justify borrowing methodological insight from it. (I think of Hodge’s description of... Read more