The Prince to the Rescue

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

Chris Deliso reports in the current issue of The National Interest on the “global network of aristocrats, oligarchs, NGOs and leaders comprising a shadow network of influencers with access to senior religious and political leaders. This network function is becoming increasingly significant now that symbolic religious events are unfolding against the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, European political division over migration and Islam, and seemingly never-ending spasms of murderous terrorism.” The U.S. has no “world-renowned clerical figureheads. No one ever... Read more

Founding ISIS

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

David Goldman thinks Trump has a point when he accuses Bush, Clinton, and Obama of creating ISIS. Bush ended a millennium of Sunni rule in Iraq when he appointed “Nouri al-Maliki to head Iraq’s first Shia-dominated government.” The result, Goldman argues, was predictable: “the Sunnis—disarmed and marginalized by the dismissal of the Iraqi army—were caught between pro-Iranian regimes in both Iraq and Syria.” They “had no state to protect them, and it was a matter of simple logic that a... Read more

Founding ISIS

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

Tales of the Christ

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

Peter Suderman doesn’t much like the Ben Hur remake, which he describes as purposeless, a lesser film in every way than its 1959 model. According to Suderman, “The new version bungles the story’s religious aspects. . . . The 1880 Lew Wallace novel was subtitled A Tale of the Christ, and occurs in parallel to the biblical story of Jesus. Previous adaptations have always served as conversion stories pitched to the faithful.” The remake “muddles the material, portraying Jesus as... Read more

Tales of the Christ

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

Barth, Rosenstock, Rosenzweig

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

Mark Lindsay (Barth, Israel, and Jesus, 27-28) notes that Barth found little intellectual companionship during his early pastorate at Safenwil. Yet, “his final years in Safenwil opened up occasions for contact with individual Jews and Jewish Christians at both social and academic levels. Many of these were Germans, with whom Barth struck up friendships following the Tambach lecture of September 1919. Most notably, he came to know Hans and Rudolf Ehrenberg, Eugen Rosenstock-Hüssy and the great German Jewish philosopher Franz... Read more

Symbolic Cosmos

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

Jean Hani (The Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 10) illustrates her concept of “vertical” cosmic symbolism with a quotation from Bonaventure: “Everything, in each of its properties, shows the diverse Wisdom, and he who knows all the properties of beings will see the Wisdom clearly. All the creatures of the sensible world lead us to God, for they are the shadows, pictures, vestiges, images, representations of the First, All-Wise, and excellent Principle of all things; they are images of the... Read more

Outbursts

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

The story of David’s installation of the ark in Jerusalem can be told as a series of “outbursts” (variations of the Hebrew word paratz; see Johnstone, 1 & 2 Chronicles, 169). In total, the verb paratz is used four times in chapters 13-15, and the noun “outburst” (peretz) five times, twice by itself (13:11; 14:11) and three times in place names. The story begins with an outburst from David. He says to the assembly of commanders and princes, “Let us... Read more

America Against Itself

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

When Saddam Hussein pushed into Iran in September of 1980, the US was in an ambiguous position. As Andrew Bacevich notes (America’s War for the Greater Middle East, 89-91): “As a practical matter, with the hostage crisis still ongoing and few Americans predisposed to sympathize with Iran, Washington was not unduly troubled by the prospect of Saddam Hussein subjecting that country to a drubbing. True, the United States did not want to see the Islamic Republic dismembered either. But subjected... Read more

Baseball Time

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

Joseph Bottum ponders why inductions into the Baseball Hall of Fame are so full of sepia-hued nostalgia. One reason has to do with the life-spans of baseball players: “football players are so short. . . . Great baseball players, by contrast, tend to have careers half again as long, with a graceful arc in the rise and decline of their statistics as they age (or, at least, they did before the generation of performance-enhancing-druggies skewed the right side of the... Read more

What does "Apocalypse" mean in Greek?