Peter J. Leithart

Figgis has his Catholic prejudices, but he’s on to something in this summary of the political ecclesiology of Wyclif, forerunner of teh Reformation: “Scholastic in form, Wyclif’s writings are modern in spirit. His de Officio regis is the absolute assertion of the Divine Right of . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Thessalonians 2:19: What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? Advent celebrates the coming of the Son of God in flesh two millennia ago. But this season is not merely a celebration of a past event, however. It is a . . . . Continue Reading »

Psalm 42:5: Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance. Psalm 42 is a lament. The Psalmist is a deer in the wilderness panting for God. He is separated from God and wonders if he will ever be in . . . . Continue Reading »

Today’s sermon is about hope. Hope is not certainty. Hope doesn’t guarantee complete control. A hopeful person is not someone who has anticipated and managed all the contingencies before he begins. Hope doesn’t avoid all mistakes and miscues. Hope is a virtue of adventurers: From . . . . Continue Reading »

Marx looked forward to the withering of the state. He was centuries late. Figgis says it already happened in the middle ages: “As Professor Maitland pointed out, under feudalism there is no public law; all rights are private, including those of the king. It is this absence of a theory of the . . . . Continue Reading »

JN Figgis ( Political Thought From Gerson to Grotius ) writes, “The normal value . . . of political theories is a ‘long period value.’ The immediate significance of an Algernon Sidney or an Althusius is small and less than nothing as compared with a practical politician, like . . . . Continue Reading »

Tracing the separation of “economics” from the rest of life, Dumont notes that one key moment was the blurring of traditional distinctions between fixed property in land and movables. This was based on the priority of the I-Thou over the I-It relation (not his terminology): in . . . . Continue Reading »

Louis Dumont ( Essays on Individualism ) notes that “the word by which the old scholastics designated society, or corporations in general, [was] universitas , ‘whole.’” By this they referred to the institutions, values, concepts, language that was “sociologically prior . . . . Continue Reading »

Trent states: “Whosoever affirms that new-born infants are not to be baptized, even though they are the children of baptized parents, or says that they are indeed baptized for the remission of sins, but derive no original sin from Adam, which requires to be expiated by the laver of . . . . Continue Reading »

I have an Advent meditation at http://www.firstthings.com/ this morning. . . . . Continue Reading »