More Than Cool Reason

Last updated on: May 9, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Antonio Damasio began to doubt the purity of reason when he encountered a patient with a brain disease that destroyed the portion of his brain that controlled emotional responses: “I had before my eyes the coolest, least emotional, intelligent human being one might imagine, and yet his practical reason was so impaired that it produced, in the wanderings of daily life, a succession of mistakes, a perpetual violation of what would be considered socially appropriate and personally advantageous. He had... Read more

More Than Cool Reason

Last updated on: May 9, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Future First

Last updated on: May 9, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The vision of the heavenly city at the end of Revelation contains a major oddity: The city descends twice. There are structural reasons for this. The first vision concludes one sequence in Revelation, and the second introduces a final vision. It is the same city, but the vision gives us different phases of the city’s descent. 21:1-8 unveils final new creation, after judgment; 21:9-22:5 is the present city, the church, the millennial city. The present city is the one that... Read more

Future First

Last updated on: May 9, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Apologetics in a Secular Age

Last updated on: May 9, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In his summary of Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, James KA Smith observes how apologetics accommodates to the social imaginary of the secular age. Apologetic responses to secularism have too often “conceded the game; that is, the responses to this diminishment of transcendence already accede to it in important ways” (How (Not) To Be Secular, 51). He quotes Taylor saying, “the great apologetic effort called forth by this disaffection itself narrowed its focus so drastically. It barely invoked the saving... Read more

No Deal

Last updated on: May 6, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

David Goldman (Spengler) writes that “Republican voters bought Trump’s message that the wicked Chinese and the feckless Mexicans have stolen jobs and wealth that rightfully belonged to Americans, and that he, Donald Trump, with his world-class negotiating skills, would go out and get them back.” The problem is that “There’s nothing to negotiate, no pie to re-divide, no Chinese hoard to bring home. World exports are down by 12% year-on-year in terms of price and dead flat in terms of... Read more

Singers and Priests

Last updated on: May 6, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The genealogy of Levi in 1 Chronicles 6 begins and ends with the genealogy of Aaron (6:1-15; 6:49-53). In between are two lists of the clans of Levi, the first a simple genealogy arranged according to the subclans of Kohath, Gershom, and Merari (6:16-30) and the second a genealogy of the Levitical singers, also arranged by subclans in the same order – Kohath, Gershom, and Merari (6:31-48). It makes a neat ABBA chiasm. The introduction to the genealogies of the... Read more

The Persistence of Modernism

Last updated on: May 6, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In a contribution to a forthcoming collection of essays on Time, David James explores the usefulness of periodization categories like “modern” and “postmodern.” To be sure, some believe that modernism and modernity are passe: “’Many emerging artists,’ reflects Terry Smith, ‘sense that Modernism—no matter how often and subtly it is Remodernized—is past its use-by date.’ This new generation, he continues, moreover ‘regard[s] ‘Postmodern’ as an outmoded term, a temporary placeholder that is no longer adequate to describe conditions that, they... Read more

What Made Trump

Last updated on: May 5, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Andrew Sullivan’s Trumpacalyptic essay in New York doesn’t persuade. The Constitutional system that Sullivan describes so well is more resilient than he thinks, and Trump more moderate, pragmatic, and changeable than he credits. But Sullivan’s explanation of Trump’s rise is spot on. On the one hand, there are the ongoing political effects of the media revolution, which has left us all less dependent on elites for our view of the world. As Sullivan says, “Those who didn’t see him coming... Read more

Sacramental Art

Last updated on: May 5, 2016 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Nearly everything about modern art “can be empirically explained by examining style, iconography and patronage,” writes Richard Nelson (The Spirit of Secular Art). What cannot be explained is the prestige of art, and this eludes because it is reliant on intuitions that artists dismiss as archaic and outmoded. The magic and prestige of art rests on the deployment of sacramental motifs and instincts. Despite the efforts of artists to liberate art from liturgy, it remains the case that “Art is... Read more

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