Peter J. Leithart

A cheer for Kuyper, who offers a great summary of Calvin’s views of art: “the blind prejudice against Sculpture, on the ground of the Second Commandment, Calvin declares unworthy of refutation. He exults in Music as a marvelous power to move hearts and to ennoble tendencies and morals. . . . . Continue Reading »

In his Lectures on Calvinism , Kuyper describes “the severely spiritual cultus which Calvinism tried to restore in the services of the church.” He cites a “far-from-Christian philosopher” who knows that “cultus becomes more religious just in proportion as it has the . . . . Continue Reading »

Stephen’s brief summary of Moses killing the Egyptian returns again and again to the dik - root, “justice.” Moses acts when he sees that one of his brothers is suffering adikia , injustice (the verb is adikeo , Acts 7:24). Moses intervenes by doing ekdikesis , by avenging justly; . . . . Continue Reading »

In an old Theology Today article, Walter Lowrie claims that “Without the kiss of peace the Holy Communion is not evidently a Koinonia.” He recognizes that it’s an extreme claim, but gives a historical defense of the assertion: “Pope Innocent III (d. 1216) asserted in De . . . . Continue Reading »

Stephenson’s does a superb job of explaining the impulse beyind the Diocletian persecution, which, he says, came from Diocletian and not, as Christians were inclined to say, from Galerius. At the heart of the persecution was an effort to revive romanitas , understood in the narrow sense that . . . . Continue Reading »

Stephenson’s discussion of the “pacifism” of the early church is balanced. “One cannot overstate,” he begins, “the essential messiness of early Christianity, which was not a monolithic set of beliefs but countless local sets of ideas and practices. Moreover, we . . . . Continue Reading »

In his fine recent biography of Constantine , Paul Stephenson explains the growth of Christianity as a result of “sex, health, and arithmetic.” The sex part has partly to do with abortion and infanticide, but more deeply with the basic family structure of ancient Rome: “If the . . . . Continue Reading »

For Paul, the world’s problem is the problem of wrath. God is holy and righteous, and His wrath is revealed from heaven against the ungodliness of men. Jews and Greeks both stand condemned before Him (Romans 1:18-3:19). Jews who were supposed to be the solution have become a central part of . . . . Continue Reading »

WH Auden argued in an essay on the fall of Rome that “One may like or dislike Christianity, but no one can deny that it was Christianity and the Bible which raised western literature from the dead.” Elaborating, “A faith which held that the Son of God was born in a manger, . . . . Continue Reading »

Dostoevsky fills his novels with innumerable devils, and they are all folk devils. For Russians, the devil was ubiquitous, and dominated their religious imaginations even more than God and the saints. His novel, The Possessed (also known as The Devils or The Demons ) is, as we’d expect, . . . . Continue Reading »