Peter J. Leithart

The Servant of Yahweh is anointed to proclaim the “acceptable year of Yahweh” and the “day of vengeance of our God” and to comfort the mourners (Isaiah 61:2). These are not opposites. They proclaim the same fact from different angles, and the connection is underscored by a . . . . Continue Reading »

The word “liberty” (deror) is rarely used in the Hebrew Bible, and the terms for its use are set by Leviticus 25, the laws of Jubilee. There, liberty includes the freeing of slaves, as whenZedekiah proclaims liberty to slaves (Jeremiah 34:8-16). But the specific liberty that is . . . . Continue Reading »

Some months ago, I wrote a brief piece on the “tragedy” of conversion.I used the word “tragedy” in the sense I develop in Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, & Hope In Western Literature. The word describes a conception of history and metaphysics in which the original is by . . . . Continue Reading »

Registration is now open for the Easter term intensive course on holistic mission at Trinity House. The course will be held at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, March 17-21, 2014.The goal of missions is to build holistic, sustainable, and self-propagating Christian communities, or to use . . . . Continue Reading »

The word ‘anaw, “humble” or “meek” is used 13x in the Psalter. It refers to a social position; it’s not only, or even primarily, an attitude of mind, but a life-condition. The meek are the afflicted, low-born, abused.Within the Psalter the word forms a story-arc . . . . Continue Reading »

Miles Kimball of the University of Michigan argues that supporting gay marriage is support for religious freedom. After all, most of the opposition to gay marriage is religious, and in America we aren’t permitted to impose our religion on other people. Besides, Kimball says, gay marriage is an . . . . Continue Reading »

Reflecting on our culture’s penchant for remakes in the NYTBR, James Parker traces the phenomenon to a “commercial factor here: the enormous built-in timidity of the culture industry, which will always be happier with a remake than a new thing. Once youve assembled a hero, a hero that . . . . Continue Reading »

Jonathan Ree reviews Bruno Latour’s An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Modernsin the TLS, and along the way sums up some of Latour’s contributions to social science.Latour’s early work in the anthropology of science, emphasizing the “social . . . . Continue Reading »

Tim Parks’s piece asking why published authors are shown so much respect begins with the career of Salman Rushdie. An easy mark. But Parks’s larger point still stands:“No one is treated with more patronizing condescension than the unpublished author or, in general, the would-be . . . . Continue Reading »

When Peter comes to the door of the house where the disciples are praying for him, they think it’s Peter’s “angel” (Acts 12:15). The thing at the door is recognizably Peter, but they don’t think it’s Peter in the flesh. It’s still the person, but not the . . . . Continue Reading »