Practical Ecumenism

Last updated on: March 11, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The New Testament makes clear that the church is one and should manifest that unity. But given our current state of institutional division, how does one proceed? Especially, how is a local pastor to proceed? Seven modest suggestions: 1) Start local, stay local. Large-scale ecumenical efforts have born fruit, some healthy, some rotten. Most pastors will never have the opportunity to engage other churches at that level, but that doesn’t mean they can’t advance the unity of the church. Focus... Read more

Potential, Act, and Violence

Last updated on: March 11, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Paolo Virno (Deja Vu and the End of History) observes that potential and act occur simultaneously. Take language: “The language faculty irrupts into becoming in concomitance with the phrase that I am speaking. It appears precisely now, as I speak, neither before nor afterwards: but, note, right now it appears as something persistent which was already there before and still will be after the fleeting actual utterance” (105). From this and other examples he draws the conclusion that we must... Read more

Remembering the Present

Last updated on: March 11, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In his Deja Vu and the End of History, Italian philosopher Paolo Virno explores the phenomenology of memory, especially in its relation to philosophies of history. The deja vu of the title isn’t a metaphor; following Henri Bergson, Virno argues that it represents “the untrammelled extension of memory’s jurisdiction, of its dominion. Rather than limit itself to preserving traces of times past, memory also applies itself to actuality, to the evanescent ‘now’” (7). For Bergson, the intriguing philosophical question about the... Read more

Creature of Primal Love

Last updated on: March 10, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In his recent study, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, Jerry Walls argues that “hell is possible precisely because God is love.” Citing several passages from John’s gospel, he points out that “for God to live with us, we must love and obey him. . . . The obedience God wants from us is an obedience that flows out of genuine love.” Yet “some may not choose to love Jesus or obey his teaching. As astounding as this is to contemplate, some human... Read more

Nevin Lectures, 2015

Last updated on: March 10, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Check out the Theopolis Institute YouTube channel for Robert Louis Wilken’s 2015 Nevin Lectures on the “Catholic Roots of Religious Freedom.” Visit the Theopolis web site for a report on the event. Read more

4s, 5s, and 7s

Last updated on: March 10, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

John hears a loud voice from heaven, described in elaborate terms (Revelation 14:2). It is like the voice of many waters, of great thunder, like the voice of harpists harping their harps. This is a wonderful little overloaded description of the sound of the singers who are singing from heaven. The numerological pattern of verse is intricate. The word “voice” or “sound” (phone) is used four times, since the heavenly voice resounds to the four corners of heaven, to the four corners... Read more

Unity As Mission

Last updated on: March 10, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The Protestant consensus that American churches long relied on no longer exists. The effect is similar to the effect of disestablishment in Europe. We never had an official national establishment, but we have enjoyed a strong unofficial generic Protestant establishment. There is no traditional religious replacement for the loss of this establishment, and what effectively replaces it is a consensus about the freedom of the individual to do whatever he wants. The normal resources that establish identity – family, work,... Read more

Joyce’s Sexual Revolution

Last updated on: March 9, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Critics have offered wildly different assessments of the role of sex in the fiction of James Joyce. On the one hand, many hostile critics his work, especially Ulysses, attack him for obscenity and indecency. They regard sex as one of the main themes of Joyce’s work. This is often allied to criticisms of Joyce’s scatological obsession and his interest in bodily detritus: With defecation (to which he devotes several pages in the “Calypso” chapter); with urination (Stephen Daedalus urinates on the... Read more

With the Lamb

Last updated on: March 9, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

John sees the Lamb surrounded by the 144,000 that were sealed on the forehead (Revelation 14:1). The company of the Lamb stands in contrast to the company of the beast. The worshipers of the beast were marked on the hand and the forehead, and the 144,000 are sealed on the forehead. That indicates a contrast between the two companies, but also suggests that the mark has something to do with liturgical engagement. If the mark of the beast gives those... Read more

Shaking the Church

Last updated on: March 9, 2015 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The church has not been a static entity, nor has the church’s history been one of smooth organic growth. There are many continuities from Jesus and the apostles to the present, but there have been regular disruptions along the way, disruptions that radically changed the church’s relation to the world and the church’s pattern of life. For 300 years, the church was an illegal, tenuous, sometimes persecuted sect. Then came Constantine, who legalized and promoted the church, and whose promotion... Read more