Peter J. Leithart

A couple of weeks ago, the fourth of our ten children got married. We’re down to three at home, our version of empty-nesting. And it’s not over. Soon enough, the other children will leave, and my wife and I will be back where we started, just the two of us. Then we’ll both die, and the Peter Leithart family will vanish. This is as it should be. Families exist to die… . Continue Reading »

Intervention in Syria is being compared to Clinton’s intervention in Kosovo. Robert Kaplan doesn’t think the analogy works, and suggests that Obama’s challenge is far more dangerous than Clinton’s: “Obama faces a dilemma more extreme than the one Clinton faced in . . . . Continue Reading »

At the Guardian , Seumas Milne argues that the race to intervene in Syria is depressingly familiar: “As in Iraq and Sudan (where President Clinton ordered an attack on a pharmaceuticals factory in retaliation for an al-Qaida bombing), intelligence about weapons of mass destruction is once . . . . Continue Reading »

At the NYRB , David Cole observes: “While Obama sends his representatives around the world to obtain backing and gain more legitimacy for a US-led military response, he has not sought the approval of the one body whose authority is clearly required: the United States Congress. A military . . . . Continue Reading »

2 Thessalonians 1 is today’s epistle reading in the Revised Common Lectionary. Or, actually, it’s a few bits and pieces of 2 Thessalonians 1. The reading includes the first four verses, which includes Paul’s customary greeting, thanksgiving, and encouragement, skips most of the . . . . Continue Reading »

I offer some reflections on the theological import of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice at the Trinity House site. . . . . Continue Reading »

Not surprisingly, Miley Cyrus’s erotic performance at the MTV awards left Camille Paglia thinking whistfully about the young Madonna. Cyrus’s antics are “symptomatic of the still heavy influence of Madonna.” But these kids, they’re nothing like the old master: . . . . Continue Reading »

James Jordan discusses various “liturgy traps” with Pastor Ralph Smith at the Trinity House site. . . . . Continue Reading »

Yahweh exhorts Joshua to keep the law and meditate ( hagah ) on it day and night (Joshua 1:7-8). The book is to be in his mouth constantly; like the prophets Ezekiel and John, he is to chew the book of the law for breakfast and dinner. Making the Word of Yahweh his food will lead to prosperity, . . . . Continue Reading »

Jody Bottum’s Catholic case for same-sex marriage gets this right: The sexual revolution was a war on the meaningfulness of sex, and in the aftermath of that revolution’s utter victory, we have no cultural resources to oppose same-sex marriage: “if heterosexual monogamy so lacks . . . . Continue Reading »