Peter J. Leithart

In a few moments, we will lay hands on you to mark you as a minister of the Church of Jesus Christ. This is an effective ritual that achieves what it portrays and proclaims. Right now, you don’t hold pastoral office in the Church. By the end of the afternoon, you will. Our hands won’t declare that you already are a minister. They will make you one. You will be irreversibly changed. Continue Reading »

When Shadrach, Meschach and Abed-nego emerge from the furnace unscathed, Nebuchadnezzar praises their God, whose angel saved the men from the fire. The three men “put their trust in Him, violating the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve any god except their own . . . . Continue Reading »

F.S. Naiden’s Smoke Signals for the Gods is a landmark study of Greek sacrifice.Naiden’s main opponents are Walter Burkert (Homo Necans), who views sacrifice psychologically as an act of sublimated violence, and Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, whose Cuisine of . . . . Continue Reading »

Saul’s three sins in 1 Samuel 13-15 correspond to the sins of Adam, Cain, and the sons of God. Like Adam, he sins with regard to worship; like Cain, he attacks his fellow Israelites; like the sons of God, he makes an alliance with an enemy.At each point, of course, there is a variation. He . . . . Continue Reading »

Felicity Morse is the self-appointed Grinch of Valentine’s day:“Walk into any shop and you’re practically attacked by romance. Angry red hearts dangle threateningly from ceiling tiles, cushions shouting LOVE are scattered accusingly across displays, and judgmental teddies . . . . Continue Reading »

Christopher Warner argues in The Augustinian Epic that Renaissance epic and medieval exegesis share two crucial features.First, both share an interest in history, but one that aims to peer behind the veil of fact into the allegorical meaning of facts. Petrarch’s epic of the Second Punic . . . . Continue Reading »

At the beginning of Revelation, the Spirit speaks to the seven churches. At the end, the voice of the bride and the voice of the Spirit become one, speaking a single wish: Come, Lord Jesus. By suffering with the Bridegroom, the bride learns His dialect. She becomes attuned to His voice. . . . . Continue Reading »

Dennis Pardee’s Ritual and Cult at Ugarit collects texts that are relevant to Ugaritic cult, especially sacrificial cult. He ends the book with a helpful survey of the similarities and differences between Ugarit and the Bible. One of the differences has to do with the use of . . . . Continue Reading »

The Lego movie has a cutting-edge social message, writes Ben Walters in The Guardian:“The film’s exuberant, kid-friendly larks – Wild West! Robot pirates! Unicorn kittens! Batman! – are laced with satirical digs at surveillance culture, built-in obsolescence and police . . . . Continue Reading »

Gary Shteyngart writes in The Russian Debutante’s Handbook (2007):“A knowledgeable Russian lazing around in the grass, sniffing clover and munching on boysenberries, expects that at any minute the forces of history will drop by and discretely kick him in the ass.“A . . . . Continue Reading »