Peter J. Leithart

Tim Judah continues his reporting on Ukraine: “What we saw in the Orange Revolution, and what we are seeing now, is a fight for the very soul of Ukraine, a country of some 45.5 million people that stretches between the eastern marches of the European Union to the western borderlands . . . . Continue Reading »

There are two temple sermons in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah himself preaches at the gate of the temple (Jeremiah 7), warning that the house of Yahweh has become a “den of thieves” (v. 11) and that the Lord will do to His house “as He did to Shiloh” (v. 14).Later, he sends . . . . Continue Reading »

Psalm 107 repeats the same phrase four times: “then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble, He saved them from their distress” (vv. 6, 13, 19, 28).There are four forms of distress: Some wander in a wilderness, hungry and thirsty, unable to find their way to a city (vv. 4-5); some are . . . . Continue Reading »

Inequality is a big theme these days. Alister Heath writes to remind us that not all inequality is equal. Some inequality arises inevitably because of disparities of talent, opportunity, risk, etc. Heath focuses on the inequality that arises when people cozy up to power in order to use . . . . Continue Reading »

Charles Kenny observes that the world is growing wealthy: “The last 10 years have seen developing countries grow far more rapidly than high-income countries, closing the gap in average incomes. Economist Arvind Subramanian estimates that China in 2030 will be about as rich as the whole . . . . Continue Reading »

News from Africa is often bad, but, as Alessandro Bruno says, there’s a fair bit of good news these days: “Africa is discovering a new spirit of optimism, reminiscent of the first decade of its post-colonial era. Despite inadequate infrastructure and at times even poorer governance, . . . . Continue Reading »

In The Construction of Social Reality and now again in Making the Social World, John Searle has explored the ontology of social facts. How can things that are themselves basically atomic particles and forces become objects like dollar bills and Presidents? Social facts are attributed . . . . Continue Reading »

Natural law theories often claim that there is a universal moral code acknowledged by all peoples in all times and places, derivable from nature. Bestiality would seem to be a good test case: Natural law arguments against bestiality are pretty straightforward, and then there’s the . . . . Continue Reading »

Rosenstock-Huessy devotes one of the essays in Die Sprache Des Menschengeschlects to an evaluation of modern urban culture, which includes a brilliant (albeit one-sided) screed about suburban life:“In the new suburbs provision will be made for all the denominations. . . . . No one faith . . . . Continue Reading »

Milbank argues in Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the People that “antiquity by and large knew of no ‘pure nature’, but already referred the natural to the supernatural, albeit this was too confined to intra-cosmic terms. Thus, as . . . . Continue Reading »