Sacramental Rhetoric

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

In her study of Eucharist and the Poetic Imagination in Early Modern England, Sophie Read observes that since Donne never wrote directly on the sacramental debates of the Reformation era, his view has to be “reconstructed . . . from its rhetorical trace” (86). Puns provide one source. A pun’s “potential to double and divide, to explore the limits of the language of signification, lends it to the expression or enactment of a sacramental dynamic” (86-7). His puns are “Janus-faced,” multiplying... Read more

Cyrus the Anointed

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

In a comment on the description of Cyrus as a “shepherd” in Isaiah 44:24-45-7, John Goldingay (The Theology of the Book of Isaiah, 66-7) observes that “in Old Testament times, ‘shepherd’ was a recognizable way to describe the role of a king. A shepherd is in charge of his sheep both in terms of controlling them and of providing for them. Applied to a king, the image suggests both the holding of authority and the responsibility to protect the people.”... Read more

Pastoral Focus

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

Christopher Beeley’s Leading God’s People is a pastoral guide drawn whose wisdom is drawn from the great pastoral theologians of the early church. In an opening chapter on leadership in the church, Beeley observes that early pastors complained about being pulled here and there from their primary tasks – “preaching, teaching, pastoral care, study, prayer, and liturgical leadership” (24). They are tempted to forget that “above all, pastoral leaders are moral and spiritual guides in the Christian life, and it is... Read more

Theology in Public

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

Sam Wells ends his appreciative Christian Century review of Rowan Williams’s Faith in the Public Square with this incisive comment: “The task is not simply to expose the inadequacy of a world without God or to show the collaborative spirit of religious engagement in the common good. It surely must more specifically be to demonstrate the unique power and thrilling wisdom of the logic of God in Christ and to reconceive tired issues in the light of the shape of Christ’s... Read more

Good Republican Watch in 2014

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

In February 2013, I predicted that the GOP would buckle on gay marriage. It was an easy, unoriginal prediction, and the evidence continues to pile up. Chris Geidner reports at BuzzFeed: “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — one of the Republicans often discussed as a potential 2016 presidential nominee — essentially ceded the issue to federal judges. “‘Any federal judge has got to look at that law not only with respect to the state’s constitution but what it means in terms of the U.S.... Read more

Kings and Priests

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

Uche Anizor writes to thank me for my review of his recent Kings and Priests, and to correct some misstatements. First, I complained in my review that he didn’t give attention to the role of the pastor as lead priest-king-reader in a community of readers. In fact., he does. While emphasizing the Reformation notion of priesthood of believers in his chapter on Luther, he does not that Luther makes a distinction between private and public ministry of the Word. Some are authorized with... Read more

Salvation and Mission

Last updated on: June 2, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In a recent issue of Review of Biblical Literature, Lars Kierspel offers this commend on Pentecostal theologian William Atkinson’s Baptism in the Spirit, a monograph on the debate about James Dunn’s Baptism in the Holy Spirit. He argues that Atkinson errs in detaching the gift of the Spirit the gift of salvation: “Atkinson tries to walk on a tight rope when he associates baptism in the Spirit with baptismal initiation, on the hand, but then disassociates it from any soteriological significance, on... Read more

Salvation and Mission

Last updated on: June 2, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Sacrifice and imitatio Dei

Last updated on: June 2, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

David Janzen (Social Meanings of Sacrifice) follows other scholars in bringing attention to “the relation between sacrifice and the importance of order.” He cites Jon Levenson’s comment that God “acts like an Israelite priest in the act of separation (hbdyl) of the various categories of created things,” but then adds that “one could also say that the priests act like God in their role of ‘separating (hbdyl) between the hold and the profane and between the impure and the clean’”... Read more

Sacrifice and imitatio Dei

Last updated on: June 2, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart