Moses and Christ

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am By Peter Leithart

Michael Hollerich, who has done some superb revisionist work on Eusebius of Caesarea, explains in a 1990 article from Church History that Eusebius employed a “similar situation” form of typology that focuses on similarities rather than differences between type and antitype, and draws out the similarities in great detail. He summarizes Eusebius’ discussion of the parallels of Moses and Christ: “The parallelism is quite close, except that Jesus worked on a worldwide scale by spreading the gospel of monotheism and... Read more

Truth and Freedom

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:50 pm By Peter Leithart

Milbank, discussing the possibility of educative coercion: “although Christianity . . . certainly requires in the end free consent to the truth, it does not fetishize this freedom merely as a correct mode of approach: truth is what most matters, and moreover a collective commitment to truth, since truth itself is the shareable and the harmonious. Thus in certain circumstances, the young, the deluded, those relatively lacking in vision require to be coerced as gently as possible. Anyone professing to... Read more

What Rough Beast?

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:48 pm By Peter Leithart

Milbank notes that “science and art have always first mimed the horrors to come.” Darwinian evolution and avant-garde prepared the way, for foreshadowed, twentieth-century horrors. He asks, “what may the far more shocking interventions of 1990s art and science . . . betoken for the present century?’ Read more

Privatio and Radical Evil

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

Milbank opens Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon (Radical Orthodoxy) with a discussion of neo-Kantian arguments concerning radical evil. In the light of the Holocaust and twentieth-century totalitarianism, they argue, the traditional Augustinian privatio is deeply inadequate. In response, Milbank relativizes totalitarianism by arguing that “European and American liberal democracy has also engendered a continuous horror almost as grave as the Holocaust, and a more troublingly sustainable mode of nihilism, appropriately disguised by an unparalleled reign of kitsch . . .... Read more

Socialists against Collectivism

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

John W. De Gruchy points out in his Christianity and Democracy that nineteenth-century Anglican socialists were concerned equally for the possessive individualism of capitalism and liberal democracy, and the deletion of the individual in collectivism. De Gruchy summarizes the views of William Temple: “respect for individual personality is the root of democracy, and the herd-instinct its greatest danger: an important reminder that the rejection of possessive individualism is not incompatible with respect for individual persons. If respect for the individual... Read more

Bailout State

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:47 pm By Peter Leithart

In the same issue of the Weekly Standard , Matthew Continetti analyzes the “bailout state.” The point of government management of the auto, banking, and other industries is not merely to save jobs (and votes) and support organized labor. More, in the bailout state, the government can “transform once-private companies into tools of economic and social policy.” Government Sponsored Enterprises lend to people without good credit; banks lend to consumers so they can spend and keep the economy running; taking... Read more

George Steiner

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:42 pm By Peter Leithart

James Gardner captures the eccentricity, flaws, and brilliance of George Steiner in a short piece in the June 15 issue of the Weekly Standard . His weaknesses are manifest – Steiner is “an unapologetic know-it-all and acrobatic show-off” given to “incessant posturings in print.” Gardner describes his usual modus as one of “hyperventilating conviction, elevated, intellectualized, and incessant.” I would only add that writing like a know-it-all is easier when you know as much as Steiner does. He makes an... Read more

Sermon notes

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:02 am By Peter Leithart

INTRODUCTION God is a God of music. The Spirit-breath glorifies the Word of the Father, and is the music of the Triune life. Made in the image of this God, we are musical instruments, created for praise. Jesus speaks with a voice like the sound of many waters (Revelation 1:16 ), and when we gather for worship we mimic that sound (Revelation 19:6). THE TEXT “Now they began to sanctify on the first day of the first month, and on... Read more

Eucharistic meditation

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:38 pm By Peter Leithart

Job 19:25-26: I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth, even after my skin which they have cut off, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see and not another. We don’t know anything about how the first sacrifice was performed. We know who performed it – Yahweh. But we don’t know exactly how He did it – how... Read more

Exhortation

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:40 pm By Peter Leithart

At one point in his debate with Job, Eliphaz says that “the heavens are not pure in God’s sight.” That may have been true when he spoke it. Blood from bulls, goats, and sheep never cleansed the heavens. But it’s not true anymore. Jesus purified heaven with better blood, His own. And heaven stays pure, even when you enter, which you are going to do this morning. In a few moments, I will tell you to “lift up your hearts.”... Read more