Peter J. Leithart

Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood wrote The World of Goods out of exasperation with the limited view of consumption that has dominated discussions, the “tendency to suppose that people buy goods for two or three restricted purposes: material welfare, psychic welfare, and display. The first two . . . . Continue Reading »

In an essay on Mauss’ The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies in Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory , Mary Douglas makes an intriguing comparison between Mauss and Adam Smith: Mauss “discovered a mechanism by which individual interests combine to make a . . . . Continue Reading »

In a March 2011 NYT review of Tree of Life , AO Scott explains one of the achievements of this great movie: “There are very few films I can think of that convey the changing interior weather of a child’s mind with such fidelity and sensitivity. Nor are there many that penetrate so . . . . Continue Reading »

Revelation 19:7, 17-18: Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready . . . And I saw an angel standing in the sun and he cried with a loud voice to all the birds which fly in midheaven, Come, assemble for the great . . . . Continue Reading »

The church calendar teaches us about Jesus, so we can be faithful disciples. In Epiphany, we focus on the manifestation of Jesus, culminating today in His glorification the Mount of Transfiguration. On Wednesday, we enter the season of Lent, when we re-focus on the suffering and sacrifice of . . . . Continue Reading »

In their introduction to The Culture of English Puritanism,1560-1700 (Themes in Focus) , Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales spend several pages discussing the role of fasting in Puritanism. The begin with Patrick Collinson’s remark that “an anthropologist wanting to describe . . . . Continue Reading »

In reaction to modern or postmodern subjectivism, Christians often pound on “objectivity.” This is often no solution, but only a shift from one pole to another within the same paradigm. In fact, subject and object are not neatly separated from one another. Subjects are objects in the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Bride of the Song is blackened by the sun, and she is in the sun because she has been forced to care for the vineyards by her angry brothers and has neglected her own vineyard. This is often taken as an allegory of Israel’s neglect of her calling. Instead of cultivating the vineyard of . . . . Continue Reading »

Yeago again, explaining Maximus’s use of the soul/body distinction in his discussion of Christology. The spirit/soul union is his main example of a “union according to hupostasis . Maximus explains: “the features which mark off someone’s body from other bodies, and . . . . Continue Reading »

In his Modern Theology article on Maximus, David Yeago helpfully lays out the intentions and assumptions of what he calls Neo-Chalcedonian Christology. The overall aim, he says, “was to interpret the definition of Chalcedon in a manner faithful to the central christological insights of Cyril . . . . Continue Reading »