The Human Age

Last updated on: December 5, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Like her other books, Diane Ackerman’s The Human Age is like a long, informative conversation with a witty woman who has been everywhere, done everything, and talked to everyone who has something interesting to say. Given the environmental concerns that inspired this book, The Human Age is somewhat more polemical than Ackerman’s other work. But she is persuaded by facts, so the polemic is muted and her positions on technology are balanced. She can’t get over the giddy wonder at the things... Read more

Baptism and the Spirit

Last updated on: December 5, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

According to Paul, the baptized are clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27). In baptism, all the baptized are joined in “one” in Christ Jesus. We can read backwards in Galatians 3 to see what that means. The “one” is the “one seed” of Abraham (3:16). We might follow NT Wright in understanding that phrase corporately (one family of Abraham) or take the view that the one is Christ. I think Wright has the better reading of verse 16. Regardless, verses 16... Read more

Paul’s Ego

Last updated on: December 5, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Paul’s offers this description of his experience at the end of Galatians 2: He died to the law. Immediately he adds that he himself was crucified with Christ, so it seems that he died to the law when he was crucified with Christ (whenever that was). Yet though he died to the law, he still lives on, or lives on again, still in the flesh. But something has changed, so that while living in flesh he lives by faith in... Read more

Theopolis Institute Accreditation

Last updated on: December 4, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

A press release from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accounability: BIRMINGHAM, AL – The ECFA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability) announced today the accreditation of Theopolis Institute of Birmingham, AL. ECFA accreditation is based on the ECFA Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship™, including financial accountability, transparency, sound board governance and ethical fundraising. Theopolis Institute joins a growing number of Christ-centered churches and ministries across America, supported by over 20 million donors that have earned the right to display the ECFA... Read more

At Gihon

Last updated on: December 4, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Solomon’s coronation takes place at Gihon (1 Kings 1:38), a water source near Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 32:30). The name itself means “a gushing, a bursting forth.” It’s an appropriate place to make a king, because the king himself is a source of living water to his people. A king rules to ensure the flourishing of his people, and to do that, goods (relative intangibles like justice and peace, legal and judicial pronouncements, material goods) must flow from the king to... Read more

Of Mules and Kings

Last updated on: December 4, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Solomon rides to his coronation on a mule (1 Kings 1:38). It’s not just any mule, but David’s mule (v. 44). Even before Solomon is on David’s throne, he is sitting in David’s seat, in David’s saddle-throne on the back of David’s mule. Why a mule? Mules are double, part horse, part donkey. The mule is thus a fitting symbol of the double people of God, the combined people, Israel and Judah. Steering David’s mule from David’s seat, Solomon is... Read more

Esau and Jacob Redux

Last updated on: December 4, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

When Bathsheba gets word that David’s son Adonijah is making himself king, she gets worried (1 Kings 1). She expects her own son Solomon to be king, and knows that she and Solomon are going to be “offenders” if Adonijah gets away with it. So she and the prophet Nathan create a drama for her husband. She goes in to David, asking if he knows that Adonijah is taking the throne and reminding David that he promised the throne to... Read more

Righteousness of God

Last updated on: December 3, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Eberhard Jungel (Justification, 78-80) defines God’s righteousness in terms of His self-consistency: “the doctrine of justification sees God as being utterly consistent with himself and therefore righteous, when it conceives of him as the justifying God who justifies not the righteous, but the unrighteous, not the pious, but the ungodly.” God is righteous, and so in proving righteous in the cross, He is proving Himself to be God. Christ is no contraction or contradiction of God’s divinity: “God’s humanity is... Read more

Being With, Being Towards

Last updated on: December 3, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The appendix to Stanslas Breton’s The Word and the Cross is an interview of Breton with Richard Kearney. Breton reveals that his earliest intellectual formation came through his interest in the Latin language, enhanced by his exposure in seminary to the scholastic logic of relations, the “scholastic emphasis on professional rigor and prepositional distinction” (130). What fascinated him in particular were theological questions “which theology itself could not answer.” He offers an example from Trinitarian theology: “the Being-in relation provided an... Read more

Silent Voices

Last updated on: December 3, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Robert Okin’s Silent Voices is a beautiful, disturbing, sad book. A practicing psychiatrist, Okin spent time on the streets of San Francisco getting to know the homeless of that city. The book includes some general analysis of the nexus between homelessness and mental illness. Tens of thousands of mentally ill people are living on the streets of American cities, and another quarter million are in jail. Okin found that most of the homeless he met “had experienced multiple traumas in childhood”—drug-addicted... Read more