Peter J. Leithart

One of the contributions of twentieth-century Catholic “nouvelle théologie,” and of Henri de Lubac and Jean Danielou in particular, is a rehabilitation of the typological exegesis of the Bible practiced by patristic and medieval theologians. Typological interpretation assumes that events and . . . . Continue Reading »

In the second chapter of his letter to the Galatians, Paul recounts how on a visit to Antioch he publicly rebuked Peter’s “hypocrisy” in withdrawing, under pressure from a delegation of the Jerusalem church, from table fellowship with Gentile believers. The New Testament scholar James D. G. . . . . Continue Reading »

In his book No Place for Truth , David Wells tells a tale of two declines”the first of which occurred in Protestant liberalism. What began as an effort to commend Christianity to its despisers ended with the loss of everything distinctively Christian. In the Kantian intellectual universe in which . . . . Continue Reading »

Several years ago, I did some research on Roman Catholics who had converted to conservative Protestant churches. What intrigued me most about those who shared their experiences with me was the large number who said that they left the Catholic Church because they became Christians or that they became . . . . Continue Reading »

Sitting at the breakfast table one morning, Whittaker Chambers looked at the intricate design of his daughter’s ear and felt inchoate stirrings of doubt about the atheistic foundations of Communist ideology. Following his example, I watch my daughter as she becomes aware of her hand and find . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the central projects of the Enlightenment, as Paul Hazard has put it, was to place the Christian God on trial. Having weighed Him in the balance and found Him wanting, those who remained theists replaced the Triune God of Christian belief with a rational “Supreme Being” stripped of . . . . Continue Reading »

When the Christian right attacked what was understood to be a recently achieved secular humanist hegemony in American politics and culture, the thrust struck deeper than they imagined. The real target, it turns out, was not a humanist conspiracy of the late twentieth century, but one of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Eugene Peterson has commented on the unhappy fact that modern pastors have become “spiritual technologists” who reduce pastoral care to “running the church” and problem-solving. “The secularized mind,” he writes, “is terrorized by mysteries.” Those in its grip “deny or ignore the . . . . Continue Reading »

President Clinton’s push to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military has been called many things: a waste of political capital, a declaration of war against biblical morality, a declaration of war against the warrior class. I call it calling a bluff. For decades, conservatives have celebrated . . . . Continue Reading »

Ecclesiastical anarchism has a long history in American Christianity, but few have gone quite as far as James H. Rutz, whose new book, The Open Church, had a prominent advertising spread in World, an evangelical news magazine. To his credit, Rutz has identified some of the glaring . . . . Continue Reading »