Islamic Thanks

Last updated on: September 1, 2017 at 4:52 pm By Peter Leithart

In his contribution to Spoken and Unspoken Thanks, Kevin Reinhart observes that “in English both ‘thanks’ and ‘gratitude’ belong to the domain of individual inner life and using them in a religious context mirrors our Western understanding of religion as interior and affective, as dispositional rather than operational” (116). It’s important, he says, “to remember that there are times and places in which ‘thanks’ is best understood as having an operational and social meaning” (133). His essay explores some of those times... Read more

No Private Worship

Last updated on: September 1, 2017 at 4:50 pm By Peter Leithart

“The division . . . between ‘corporate’ and ‘private’ worship must be discarded,” writes Alexander Schmemann in his Introduction to Liturgical Theology (24). He explains: “The purpose of worship is to constitute the Church, precisely to bring what is ‘private’ into the new life, to transform it into what belongs to the Church, i.e. shared with all in Christ. In addition its purpose is always to express the Church as the unity of that Body whose Head is Christ. And,... Read more

Freud and the Faith

Last updated on: September 1, 2017 at 4:48 pm By Peter Leithart

Adam Gopnik reviews Frederick Crews’s Freud in The New Yorker, and along the way to the review gives a brisk overview of the spread of Freudianism from Vienna to Hampstead to Berkeley, where Crews spent his career teaching. Crews was among the earliest Freudian literary scholars, but has devoted his later years to doing penance with a spate of critiques and take-downs, including his recent book. At the end of the review, Gopnik claims that Crews presents the “novel charge” that psychoanalysis is “anti-Christian”:... Read more

Medieval Impurities

Last updated on: August 31, 2017 at 3:14 pm By Peter Leithart

For many Christians today, the purity rules of ancient Israel seem bizarre and opaque. We’d never think of trying to observe them. This “disenchantment” of purity is a sign of the power and success of the Reformation, because medieval Christians were still very much at home in the world of purity and pollution. C. Colt Anderson’s contribution to A Companion to Pastoral Care in the Middle Ages shows how questions of purity and impurity informed the pastoral reform movements of the thirteenth century.... Read more

Sacred and Secular at the Lord’s Table

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 12:25 am By Peter Leithart

At the center of Christian worship stands a table, and the climactic event toward which all liturgical action moves a meal of bread and wine, a feast on the good things of this Earth. Read more

Saved By Exile

Last updated on: August 29, 2017 at 1:12 pm By Peter Leithart

The Chronicler’s account of the reign of Amon, son of Manasseh and father of Josiah, is very brief (2 Chronicles 33:21-25). But these few verses hold some treasure. Like his father, he does evil in the eyes of Yahweh. Throughout 1-2 Chronicles the verb for “doing” evil is ‘asah, which can also mean “make.” “The evil” is not merely in doing certain actions, but in making certain things, or establishing certain laws, habits, patterns of life. In the case of Amon,... Read more

Mercy for Widows

Last updated on: September 1, 2017 at 9:06 pm By Peter Leithart

The story of Ruth shows us that the Lord will restore all that Israel lacks. Read more

Liturgy and Life

Last updated on: August 29, 2017 at 5:13 pm By Peter Leithart

How is liturgy related to life? We might explore that question by attending to the nouns: What is liturgy? What is life? I instead want to pay attention to the conjunction: What are we saying when we say we talk about liturgy “and” life? The “and” suggests that we’re talking about two distinct realms, activities, or spheres that somehow need to be integrated. But is that true? Are liturgy and life distinct things that need to be joined together? Is life over... Read more

Structure of 2 Chronicles 33

Last updated on: August 29, 2017 at 5:17 pm By Peter Leithart

The Chronicler’s account of Manasseh’s reign (2 Chronicles 33:1-20) is organized in a chiasm: A. Manasseh becomes king, v. 1 B. Builds high places, erects altars and an image, vv. 2-9 C. Manasseh does not listen, v. 10 D. Yahweh brings host of Assyrians, v. 11 C’. Humbles himself, prays, Yahweh is entreated, vv. 12-13 B’. Build walls, demolishes altars and removes image, high places remain, vv. 14-17 A’. Remainder of acts of Manasseh, vv. 18-20 B and B’ are... Read more

Called From the Goyim

Last updated on: August 29, 2017 at 1:11 pm By Peter Leithart

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The story of the tower of Babel, writes Harvey H. Guthrie (Theology As Thanksgiving) is “a sarcastic caricature of ancient Near Eastern culture and society and religion” (91). The tower is “the structure through which the human community made contact with the heavenly community whose existence was the real basis of life and meaning in the cosmos. . . . Through its contact with the heavenly temple-palace, in the person of the king and in the actions of the cult... Read more