Peter J. Leithart

Paul determined to know nothing but Jesus and the cross. Was that enough? What is the cross? Is it big enough to fill the universe? The cross is the work of the Father, who gave His Son in love for the world; the cross is the work of the Son, who did not cling to equality with God but gave Himself to shameful death; the cross is the work of the Spirit, through whom the Son offers Himself to the Father and who is poured out from the pierced side of the glorified Son. The cross displays the height and the depth and the breadth of eternal Triune love… . Continue Reading »

Ong again: “Sound signals the present use of power, since sound must be in active production in order to exist at all . . . . Sound can induce repose, but it never reveals quiescence. It tells us that something is going on . . . . A primitive hunter can see, feel, smell, and taste an elephant . . . . Continue Reading »

History of the 20th century: God is dead - Nietzsche. No, God is silent - Buber. Then Pentecostalism. . . . . Continue Reading »

Walter Ong ( The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (The Terry Lectures Series) ) takes note of the much-remarked primacy of taste in eighteenth-century European culture, but Ong offers an explanation: “The sense of taste is basically a discriminatory . . . . Continue Reading »

In a chapter on the “secularization of labor” in his The Restoration of Perfection: Labor and Technology in Medieval Culture , George Ovitt traces the disruption of “spiritual” and “manual” labor to eleventh-century monastic reforms, tied in with the Gregorian . . . . Continue Reading »

Not long after independence, the US faced “its first acute foreign threat,” writes Michael Oren in Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present . Not from Britain or France, but from North Africa. John Paul Jones complained that “The Algerians are . . . . Continue Reading »

Robert Kagan opens his Dangerous Nation: America’s Foreign Policy from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Vintage) by observing the contrast between the worries of the world and the self-perception of Americans: “Americans have cherished an image of themselves as by . . . . Continue Reading »

Readers with an interest in the work of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy should take a look at the ERH Society’s new web site: http://www.erhsociety.org/ . . . . Continue Reading »

Beale helpfully notes the links between Revelation 10:6-7 and 6:11, both of which speak of the time being fulfilled. 6:11 speaks of the completion of the suffering of the saints, while 10:6-7 says that the time is no longer (that is, there is no more delay) and that the mystery of God is fulfilled. . . . . Continue Reading »

Another strong angel descends to John with the rainbow around his head (10:1). The previous reference to rainbow said it surrounded the heavenly throne (4:3) Hence: The angel’s head = the heavenly throne. The angel descends from heaven, but he is gargantuan, able to place a foot in the sea . . . . Continue Reading »