Peter J. Leithart

Mark 11:15-16: ?And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves, and He would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple.?E We saw in the sermon . . . . Continue Reading »

People often cling to familiar and comfortable things even when they know that clinging to the past will destroy them. Remember Lot?s wife: When fire falls from heaven and starts burning your town, that?s a strong hint it?s time to leave. Yet, Lot?s wife yearned for the doomed world she should have . . . . Continue Reading »

Eberhard Jungel?s 2001 volume, Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith (T&T Clark) has a lot of useful material (and some not so useful material). I found Chapter 3, ?The Justification Event?Eto be the most useful. Below, I?ve summarized his arguments from that chapter. 1) Jungel starts . . . . Continue Reading »

Michael Caines reviews Peter Knox-Shaw’s Jane Austen and the Enlightenment in the March 4 issue of the TLS . Caines provides a nice overview of the debates concerning Austen’s political views and alleged social conservatism before turning to Knox-Shaw’s particular contribution, . . . . Continue Reading »

This post is currently missing due to a server crash. Perhaps in the future, Dr. Leithart will re-write it. — Admin. . . . . Continue Reading »

I caught a few minutes of an interview with Harry Frankfurt on some late night TV show recently. In a venue dominated by stars, the appearance of an Ivy League philosopher was, shall we say, surprising. Less surprising, though, when it became clear that he was speaking on the topic of his recent . . . . Continue Reading »

My work is cited several times in the recent Mississippi Valley Presbytery Report on the New Perspective and the Federal Vision. Since that Report has been widely cited and discussed, I suppose some response is in order. I am not responding to all of the points where I am cited, but only the ones . . . . Continue Reading »

Hart has previously discussed various postmodernism options for aesthetics, showing how postmodernism reduces to an ontology of violence or a discourse of the sublime. Now he turns to Nietzsche to ask whether he provides a possible future for thought. III. The Will to Power. Hart suggests that in . . . . Continue Reading »

Robert Alter reviews Mary Douglas’s latest book, Jacob’s Tears: The Priestly Work of Reconciliation , in the March 3 issue of the London Review of Books . Douglas’s book deals with two main areas, the first historical and the second anthropological. Alter finds the first section . . . . Continue Reading »

Writing in the 1610s, William Barclay pointed to the astonishing paradoxical benefits of smoking: “Tobacco is hote, because it hath acrimonie; yet, it is cold because it is narcoticke and stupefactiue, it maketh drunken, and refresheth, it maketh hungrie and filleth, it maketh thirstie and . . . . Continue Reading »