You Are A Nanoverse

Last updated on: July 21, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Tim Flannery’s NYRB review of Paul Falkowski’s Life’s Engines and Peter Ward and Joe Kirschvink’s A New History of Life sums up the authors’ points: “our cells are comprised of a series of highly sophisticated ‘little engines’ or nanomachines that carry out life’s vital functions.” These microscopic machines all work together harmoniously: “Falkowski points out that we also consist of trillions of electrochemical machines that somehow coordinate their intricate activities in ways that allow our bodies and minds to function with the required reliability and... Read more

Cult of the Host

Last updated on: July 21, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

One chapter of Emmanuel Katongole’s A Future for Africa is a critique of the Ugandan Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (MRTCG). He argues that the movement has a “tendency toward isolation,” fails “to reimagine the nature of Christian leadership,” and exhibits a “lack of hope” (129). His proposed reforms include openness to strangers, leadership understood as service, and the formation of “a Eucharistic community of forgiveness and hope” (129). The last two are closely connected: Eucharistic... Read more

Pomo Pentecostalism

Last updated on: July 21, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

David Martin (Tongues of Fire, 165) cites a study of Mexican Pentecostal healing that highlights the anti-modernity of the Pentecostal movement. Like black culture and partly because of it, Pentecostalism is characterized by “an emphasis on the spoken as much as the written; the ‘telling’ of faith and giving of testimony through stories; the extension of participation to all, including women; the inclusion of dreams and visions in personal and public worship; and ‘an understand of the body-mind relationship that... Read more

Structure in Revelation 19-21

Last updated on: July 21, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Revelation 19-21:8 functions as a literary unit, broken up into subunits by the phrase “and I heard” (19:1; 21:3) and “and I saw” (19:11, 17, 19; 20:1, 4, 11; 21:1, 2). There are ten sections in all. The two “hearing visions” frame the section. In 19:1, John hears the loud voice of a great heavenly multitude celebrating the fall of Babylon; in 21:3, he hears a loud voice from the throne, announcing that God has tabernacled among men. Like the... Read more

Racism and the Modern Self

Last updated on: July 20, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In his A Future for Africa, Emmanuel Katongole offers this brief analysis of the roots of racism. He argues that it is a specifically modern phenomenon, and that it is entrenched in “the story of the modern self, particularly the constant anxiety at the heart of the modern project.” Moderns reject any story that we have not chosen, and thus must justify their existence, and of our knowledge, values, and worth. We pretend to be “autonomous and our own self-makers,” playing... Read more

The Bible Teaches Us To Read It

Last updated on: July 20, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Those who share in the first resurrection are not under the authority of the second death (Revelation 20:6). We know what the first resurrection is. John has just told us: Beheaded martyrs and those who resist the beast come to life and reign with Christ. “This is the first resurrection,” John says. Check; got it. But “second death”? We’ve heard it before (Revelation 2:11), but John hasn’t defined it. And he doesn’t here. If we keep reading, though, we find our... Read more

Bound and Unbound

Last updated on: July 20, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The verb “bind” (Greek, deo) is used four times in John’s gospel. The uses form a little chiasm: A. Lazarus emerges from the grave bound with grave clothes, 11:44. B. The Romans arrest and bind Jesus, 18:12. B’. Anna sends Jesus, still bound, to Caiaphas, 18:24. A’. Jesus is bound in linen wrappings at his death, 19:40. The structure links Lazarus and Jesus, and also links the binding of grave clothes with the binding of Jesus by Romans and Jews. ... Read more

End of Music

Last updated on: July 20, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The fall of Babylon brings an end to the sounds and sights of urban life. In particular it means the end of music (Revelation 18:22). Music once spread to the four corners of the city; when she is tossed into the cease, all four orchestra sections cease – harpists, musicians, flutists, trumpeters. But it’s not just music that ceases. Music was integral to the religious and political life of the city, and when it goes silent civic life grinds to... Read more

Harmony – Social and Musical

Last updated on: July 17, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In a number of places in his writing on Pentecostalism, David Martin refers to a musical variant of the “Halevy thesis,” Elie Halevy’s argument that the evangelical revival that birthed Methodism was the framework within which English religion and culture developed during the 19th century. Martin’s variant is a musical Halevy thesis, which he applies to Pentecostal music in Tongues of Fire: “The power of music is . . . an influence toward social harmony. Music is anciently credited with charms... Read more

David’s Women

Last updated on: July 17, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

April Westbrook’s “And He Will Take Your Daughters” takes its title from 1 Samuel 8, the prophet Samuel’s warning speech to Israel about the dangers of kingship. Westbrook shows that the stories of both Saul and David bear out the warning. The “woman stories” in 1-2 Samuel not only expose David’s weakness as a man, but also force the question of his skill and success as a king. Each story, she argues, poses the question, Will the king do justice? Usually,... Read more