Special Offers

Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Tribal Theology

Last updated on: April 25, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The Princeton Proposal (40-1) observes a shift in the basis and nature of division from the Reformation to the present. Initially, disputes “took the form of argumentative exegesis of Holy Scripture, in which the great Christian teachers and witnesses of the past were called to give testimony.” As divisions unfolded, “actual dispute” waned and in its place came a parody of dispute that was more a “ritual revalidation of division.” Theological scholarship and instruction got caught up in this process, taking... Read more

Unity and Mission

Last updated on: April 25, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The Princeton Proposal on Christian Unity, published in 2003 as In One Body Through the Cross has some bracing passages on the connection of unity and mission. The authors insist that the common life of the church is not merely a means for mission, but an “essential goal of the mission that God has appointed for his people. Unity is not merely a means to mission, but rather a constituent goal: God gathers his people precisely in order to bring unity... Read more

Unity and Mission

Last updated on: April 25, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The Princeton Proposal on Christian Unity, published in 2003 as In One Body Through the Cross has some bracing passages on the connection of unity and mission. The authors insist that the common life of the church is not merely a means for mission, but an “essential goal of the mission that God has appointed for his people. Unity is not merely a means to mission, but rather a constituent goal: God gathers his people precisely in order to bring unity... Read more

Catholic Luther

Last updated on: April 24, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

I go back again and again to David Yeago’s seminal article on the “Catholic Luther” in The Catholicity of the Reformation. This time around, this passage on Luther’s early theology of the cross stood out. Yeago argues that Luther’s main question was not, “Where can I find a gracious God?” but “How do I know I have encountered the true God and not just a useful idol that soothes me?” And Luther’s initial answer is to say that the true and... Read more

Catholic Luther

Last updated on: April 24, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

I go back again and again to David Yeago’s seminal article on the “Catholic Luther” in The Catholicity of the Reformation. This time around, this passage on Luther’s early theology of the cross stood out. Yeago argues that Luther’s main question was not, “Where can I find a gracious God?” but “How do I know I have encountered the true God and not just a useful idol that soothes me?” And Luther’s initial answer is to say that the true and... Read more

Baptism into koinonia

Last updated on: April 24, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In his contribution to The Catholicity of the Reformation, Robert Jenson pencils in the contours of the communio ecclesiology that arose within Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism and has become, as he says, “a major achievement of ecumenical consensus” (1). It is a Trinitarian ecclesiology and, in Jenson’s summary, an eschatological one. As people of God, body of Christ, and temple of the Spirit, the church is “grounded in God himself,” but grounded in anticipation, since the people are gathered only at... Read more

Natural Sex Revisited

Last updated on: April 24, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

A week ago, I posted a series of quotations from James Neill’s Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies. Neill shows that same-sex relations are common among animals and standard practice in many human societies. In what sense, then can we describe same-sex relations, as Paul does in Romans 1, as “unnatural”? I concluded that “The claim that homosexuality is ‘unnatural’ has weight only if ‘nature’ is tied to a notion of proper ends and goods. The claim would... Read more

The Tragedy of Saul

Last updated on: April 24, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The narrative of Saul is a superb study in the psychology of envy. Saul becomes enraged at David because of David’s success in fighting his, Saul’s battles. It is utterly irrational envy, as envy always is. Saul’s envy builds to a murderous rage, as he tries twice to kill David. When he fails, his rage is mixed with fear because Yahweh is with his rival. Saul’s rage doesn’t stay confined to David. Anyone who helps David, defends or allies with... Read more

Red, Black, Gray

Last updated on: April 24, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

How did religion survive and revive in China? Answering that question in Religion in China, Fenggang Yang sketches the outlines of a political-economic sociology of religion. Like many sociologists of religion, he rejects the theory of secularization. Modernity has not proven to be the solvent of religious faith that many thought it would be. Yet Yang isn’t satisfied with the market alternative proposed by some, such as Rodney Stark. Because market theories of religion focus on Europe and the US, they... Read more

Lifted

Last updated on: April 24, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Lifts might not have changed everything, but they changed a lot, according to Andreas Berard’s Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator. The TLS reviewer observes how the elevator transformed architecture, and the class distribution of vertical space: “The lift allowed the dramatic recalibration of building types. Staircases were reduced to mere fire escapes while the piano nobile or bel étage lost its exclusivity. The best rooms in nineteenth-century European hotels and apartment buildings were on the second floor, while servants... Read more

370
371
372
373
374

Browse Our Archives

TRENDING AT PATHEOS Evangelical

view all Evangelical blogs