Peter J. Leithart

Timothy Gorringe ( A Theology of the Built Environment: Justice, Empowerment, Redemption ) summarizes Barth’s idea of “divine spatiality”: “God’s ‘eminent spatiality’ . . . grounds our own created spatiality. Space, in other words, is not something . . . . Continue Reading »

Jonathan Edwards writes in his Personal Narrative about his delight in nature, and then went off into an allegorical reverie: “The soul of the true Christian . . . appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to . . . . Continue Reading »

Ephrem the Syrian on Genesis 1: “The Holy Spirit warmed the waters with a kind of vital warmth, even bringing them to a boil through intense head in order to make them fertile. The action of a hen is similar. It sits on its eggs, making them fertile through the warmth of incubation. Here . . . . Continue Reading »

In a fascinating discussion of Enrique Martinez Celaya’s painting Thing and Deception in his God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art (Cultural Exegesis) , Daniel Siedell quotes Martinez Celaya’s comments: “I chose a seemingly banal image, a chocolate bunny rabbit . . . . Continue Reading »

Hobson believed that the imperial scramble was driven by the need for capitalists to find new areas for investment. Unlike Lenin, who used his theories and data, Hobson did not think that imperialism was the inevitable result of capitalist expansion. The problem was oversavings by capitalists and . . . . Continue Reading »

In his classic study of Imperialism , JA Hobson distinguished between colonialism and nationalism. Colonialism “consists in the migration of part of a nation to vacant or sparsely peopled foreign lands,” and thus is “a genuine expansion of nationality” and nationalism. With . . . . Continue Reading »

Bavinck says, in defense of the necessity of anthropomorphism, that “We simply must acknowledge that even thought our finite understanding of God is limited, it is no less true! We possess exhaustive knowledge of very little; all reality, including the visible and physical, remains something . . . . Continue Reading »

Bonaventure said that we must transfer “to the divine that which pertains to the creature.” This is no unfortunate necessity. Rather, “God’s glory requires this transference. For, since God is greatly to be praised, lest he should ever lack praise because of the scarcity of . . . . Continue Reading »

The Cappadocians described the personal distinctions within God by reference to “relations of origin.” Father, Son, and Spirit are what they are from eternity past. Pannenberg, Moltmann, Jenson all want to reverse this: Father, Son, and Spirit are what they are in eternity future. . . . . Continue Reading »

Further reflections drawn from/inspired by Jordan’s essay on orientation in Revelation. Jordan matches the faces of the cherubim with the furnishings of the sanctuary, and particularly of the heavenly sanctuary. John enters heaven through an eastern door, looking west (we infer this from the . . . . Continue Reading »