Peter J. Leithart

Medieval Christians were obsessed with the Song of Songs. No book of the Bible received such intensely devoted attention in commentary and preaching. Bernard of Clairvaux preached eighty-six homilies on the Song and died just as he was getting started on chapter 3. The Song has a much-diminished place in the modern Christian imagination. The time is far past to reverse that trend, but it is worth reversing only if the Song is recovered as allegory… . Continue Reading »

Methodist minister George S. Phillips said during the civil war that “Our mission . . . should only be accomplished when the last despot should be dethroned, the last claim of oppression broken, the dignity and equality of redeemed humanity everywhere established, and the American flag . . . . . . . Continue Reading »

Farr again, commenting on the case of Abdul Rahman who was convicted of apostasy in Afghanistan, sentenced to death, and released after U.S. pressure. This all came after the Afghanistan had, with U.S. support, adopted a constitution: “The Afghan constitution was heralded as a major step . . . . Continue Reading »

In his World of Faith and Freedom: Why International Religious Liberty Is Vital to American National Security , Thomas Farr describes the failures of the Bush administration to press for religious freedom in Saudi Arabia: “As the second Bush term neared its end, it seemed clear to . . . . Continue Reading »

A fragment: Wilfred McClay has observed that despite our reputation as extroverted materialists, Americans have a strong introspective streak. [1] That is not surprising in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, when the United States has attained a world supremacy unmatched by any . . . . Continue Reading »

“They draw near with their mouths, and honor Me with their lips, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their fear for me is commandment of rulers” (Isaiah 29:13; cf. Matthew 15:8). This well-known prophetic condemnation of hypocrisy implies a neat theory of language. First, it . . . . Continue Reading »

INTRODUCTION In the opening section of this chapter, Isaiah prophesies the coming Assyrian siege of Jerusalem (Isaiah 36-37). David’s city is under siege (Isaiah 29:1), yet Yahweh intervenes at the last moment to disperse Jerusalem’s enemies like chaff (v. 5). THE TEXT “Woe to . . . . Continue Reading »

Isaiah 28:28: Grain for bread is crushed. You are God’s field, God’s vineyard. You are His planting, yield from the seed of His Word planted in the ground of your heart. You are the grain and the grapes of His harvest. The Lord is a wise farmer. He knows His land, knows just how much . . . . Continue Reading »

Epiphany is a season about light, about the light that God is, about the Light from Light that God sent, about the light from the Light of Light that shines from the church to draw the nations to the brightness of His rising. Epiphany is also, inescapably, about darkness. Light came into the world, . . . . Continue Reading »

Many of the goddesses of ancient paganism were domestic types. The goddesses were mother goddesses, or weaver goddesses or sometimes associated with higher arts of civilization – writing and other cultivated elite arts. Tikva Frymer-Kensky notes ( In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture . . . . Continue Reading »