On the Creed

Last updated on: May 30, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Of late, many within the evangelical Protestant world have been calling for some form of ressourcement, renewed attention to the early church’s creeds, theologians, liturgies, and practices. Michael Bird’s What Christians Ought To Believe is one of the best of the lot. Bird, a New Testament scholar at Ridley College, Melbourne, doesn’t assume much prior knowledge of the creed, of creedalism, or of the Christian faith. He explains where the creeds came from, what they’re used for, and rebuts anti-creedal... Read more

Natural-Born Cyborgs

Last updated on: May 30, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Human beings,” asserts Andy Clark at the beginning of his Natural-Born Cyborgs, “are natural- born cyborgs” (3). By that, he means that “the human mind, if it is to be the physical organ of human reason, simply cannot be seen as bound and restricted by the biological skinbag. In fact, it has never been thus restricted and bound, at least not since the first meaningful words were uttered on some ancestral plain. But this ancient seepage has been gathering momentum... Read more

God-Fearers

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

We are apt to think of a deeply religious person as a ‘true believer,’ writes Howard Wettstein in The Significance of Religious Experience. In the Hebrew Bible, though, “there is no expression . . . that corresponds to our term, ‘believer.’ The phrase that comes closest is ‘Y’rei Adonai,’ which means ‘one who stands in awe of the Lord.’. . . This suggests an emphasis on affect, orientation, responsiveness, rather than the cognitive. Specifically, this Hebrew expression suggests that awe... Read more

DysUtopian Literature

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

In his study of The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature, Keith Booker observes that “much of the history of recent utopian thought can be read as a gradual shift from utopian to dystopian emphases, while utopian thought itself has come more and more to be seen as escapist or even reactionary.” But this is too simple: “utopian and dystopian visions are not necessarily diametrical opposites. Not only is one man’s utopia another man’s dystopia, but utopian visions of an ideal... Read more

Choosing Apocalyptics

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

In the closing chapter of Heaven on Earth, Richard Landes considers the import of the two major apocalyptic threats of the early twenty-first century—anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and global jihad warming (GJW). Both seem to portend TEOTWAWKI, the end of the world as we know it. What we find most threatening says a good bit about our politics: “Westerners generally find the ‘AGW’ apocalyptic scenario much more appealing, not only because of the powerful empirical evidence, but also because it... Read more

Choosing Apocalyptics

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

Spielberg’s Ambivalence

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

Kristen Thompson devotes several pages of her Apocalyptic Dread, a study of apocalyptic in contemporary film, analyzing Spielberg’s 2005 remake of War of the Worlds. She points to the “film’s extensive references to 9/11 and terrorism as the new marker of dread in the twenty-first century.” She quotes an interview where Spielberg admits that the movie “about Americans fleeing for their lives, being attacked for no reason, having no idea why they are being attacked and who is attacking them.”... Read more

Spielberg’s Ambivalence

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

Millennial Modernity

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

According to Richard Landes (Heaven on Earth), traditional societies are organized by a “prime divider,” a boundary between elites and commoners. He follows Ernest Gellner in called these “agro-literate” societies, since that phrase names two key technologies that mark the division. More generally, “Elites construct prime dividers along four major lines: legal privilege, stigmatization of manual labor, restricted access to the technologies of knowledge, and weaponry— all imposed by potentes who possess ‘honor’ and ‘status’” (216). Modernity is a product... Read more

Varieties of Apocalypse

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

Richard Landes’s Heaven on Earth is a study of millennial apocalyptic movements, that is, movements that share a belief in “a millennial vision of the world transformed, and an apocalyptic belief in that transformation’s imminence” (22). Though the movement he explores share a belief in the transformation of this world, within history, and an excitement that the expected change is just around the corner, they are not all the same. Some are “hierarchical” or “imperial,” offering a “top-down model of... Read more

True or False: The mystery hidden for ages is Christ in us, the hope of glory.