Rational Disgust

Last updated on: July 28, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Ross Douthat comments on why so many of his fellow journalists are turning away from the outrageous organ trade of Planned Parenthood: “it’s precisely a fetus’s humanity that makes its organs valuable, and the experience of recognizing one’s own children, on the ultrasound monitor and after, as something more than just ‘products of conception’ or tissue for the knife. . . . “dwelling on that content gets you uncomfortably close to Selzer’s tipping point — that moment when you start pondering the... Read more

Civility and Secularization

Last updated on: July 28, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In his classic 1978 study of civil religion, No Offense, the late John Cuddihy affirms Talcott Parsons’s view that civil society or civic culture isn’t post-Christian but intensely Christianized. It is “a genuine, progressive stage in the further institutionalization of Christian values into the social structures and institutions (political, academic, economic, and other) of our society. The gloomy interpretation of ‘secularization,’ Parsons would contend, has blinded us to the fact that, by the roundabout route of differentiation, there now exists a... Read more

Symbolic Boundaries and Social Capital

Last updated on: July 28, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Robert Wuthnow (Rough Country) observes that “symbolic boundaries having to do with religion do in fact include differences in patterns of social relationships. Homophily appears in social networks to some extend such that Catholics are more likely to include fellow Catholics among their networks of close friends than non-Catholics are, and similar patterns are evident among Jews.” This doesn’t mean that social networks are closed in by the religious boundaries: “Social networks may be homophilous with respect to religious categories... Read more

First and Last

Last updated on: July 28, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The first gift promised to faithful members of the seven Asian churches is access to the tree of life in Paradise (Revelation 2:7). that is one of the last things mentioned in John’s vision of new Jerusalem (22:1-2, 14). The first thing promised is the last delivered. That inversion continues as we compare the seven letters to the final visions of Revelation. 1) John promises the faithful of Smyrna that they will not be harmed by the second death (2:11),... Read more

What Rational Choice Theory Misses

Last updated on: July 27, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

At the end of his story of Texas Christianity (Rough Country), Robert Wuthnow assesses the strengths and weaknesses of two major theoretical perspectives on modern religion – secularization theory and rational choice theory. Secularization theory misses a lot: “It underplays the continuing importance of agriculture and the rural population relative to commerce and cities. It fails to say much about the relationships between white and black residents or between Anglos and Hispanics and Protestants and Catholics. How the relationships between... Read more

Bloody Monday and Other Atrocities

Last updated on: July 27, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Will Herberg (Protestant Catholic Jew) summarizes the American response to the growth of the Irish Catholic population of the US. Tension simmered throughout the middle antebellum decades of the nineteenth century, as nearly 2 million Irish, mostly Catholic, immigrated: “The Irish, precisely because in language, manners, and culture, they were so like and yet so different from the native Americans, seemed to the latter a far greater peril than the more obvious foreigners from the Continent; moreover, because they settled... Read more

No Temple

Last updated on: July 27, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

A city descends from heaven (Revelation 21:9ff). It’s laid out as a cube, like the Most Holy Place. It’s measured, like other holy environments in the Bible. It is adorned with jewels – precious stones like the stones of the temple or on the high priest’s breastpiece. It’s a golden city, pure gold, like the pure gold of the sanctuary or the sanctuary furniture. John sees no temple in the city (21:22), and we expect that’s because the temple has... Read more

Structure in Revelation 21:1-5

Last updated on: July 27, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Revelation 21:1 concludes the last section of chapter 20, but also inaugurates a new section of the text. It’s a Janus passage, looking both back and forward. 21:1-8 concludes the large section begun in 17:1-2, the fourth “in Spirit” vision of the book. The section is divided into smaller bits by some of John’s characteristic discourse markers: 1. “And I saw,” v. 1. 2. “And I saw,” v. 2. 3. “And I heard a voice from the throne,” v. 3.... Read more

Divine Craftsman

Last updated on: July 24, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In Making Good, Trevor Hart summarizes an earlier vision of artistry as craftsmanship: “a human activity of skilled making or forming” (22), and unpacks several dimensions of this definition. Craft is not “a mode of ‘making’ linked primarily to the realization or gratification of an artist’s burning individual vision or his or her need to express some inner emotional excess.” On the contrary, craft is a “social phenomenon” (23), essentially tied with tradition, apprenticeship, and collaboration: “Craft is bound up with... Read more

Bourdieu’s Language Games

Last updated on: July 24, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Jeannine Verdes-Leroux doesn’t like Pierre Bourdieu, not one bit. In her Deconstructing Pierre Bourdieu, she calls him of offering a “con-artist’s sociology” (22), a lazy evidence-free sociology based more on Bourdieu’s personal experience than on research. Some of her complaints could be lodged against any number of intellectuals. Does Bourdieu excoriate and school-marm other sociologists? He wouldn’t be the first. Does he make assertions without data that will back it up? Surely there’s a place for inspired intuition. Is his... Read more