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The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)
Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
There has been a huge response to my post on “Too catholic to be Catholic” earlier this week, and I can’t hope to respond to everything. Given what I’ve seen of some of the responses, though, it will be helpful for me to clarify and elaborate briefly the biblical framework I assume for thinking through the problem of the divided church. That framework is taken largely from the history of the divided kingdom of Israel as it’s recorded in 1-2 Kings.
The theological history of 1-2 Kings gives an overall model for thinking about a church that is genuinely divided; it explains how I can describe Catholics and Orthodox as brothers and sisters while at the same time accusing them of liturgical idolatry; in the end, 1-2 Kings (with some parallels from 1-2 Chronicles) gives hope that the division of the church is not permanent, and that we will all one day share a great Passover, such as there never was in Israel (2 Kings 23:22).
Let me elaborate these points.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, May 24, 2012 at 5:53 am
In a post last week, I criticized some aspects of Nevin’s and Calvin’s sacramental theology. Jonathan Bonomo, author of Incarnation and Sacrament: The Eucharistic Controversy Between Charles Hodge and John Williamson Nevin
I actually think Nevin would essentially agree with Leithart’s point about what is given objectively in the sacrament. As would Calvin. The quote from Calvin contra Westphal cited by Nevin (and Leithart) only tells part of the story re. the rain/rock analogy. Here’s a fuller selection from the Institutes (1559), where Calvin eventually makes the same point as that made in the citation against Westphal. But note particularly the paragraph that precedes that point, where Calvin emphasizes the fact that the gift is indeed truly given to all, and that giving is indicative of divine beneficence.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 2:40 am
My friends tell me that my name has been invoked in various web skirmishes concerning Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, sometimes by people, including friends, who claim that I nurtured them along in their departure from the Protestant world. My friends also hinted that it would be good for me to say again why I’m not heading to Rome or Constantinople or Moscow (Russia!), nor encouraging anyone to do so. Everything I say below I’ve said before in various venues – on this blog, in First Things, in conference presentations. But it might be useful to put down my reasons fairly concisely in one place, so here tis.
One of the major themes of my academic and pastoral life, and one of the passions of my heart, has been to participate in the healing of the divided church. I have written and taught a great deal on ecclesiology; I participate in various joint Protestant-Catholic-Orthodox ventures (Touchstone, First Things, Center for Catholic-Evangelical Dialog). I consider many Catholics and Orthodox friends as co-belligerents in various causes, and I think of Catholicism and Orthodoxy as allies on a wide range of issues, not only in the culture wars but in theology and church life.
This isn’t just a theological niche for me. It’s a product of a deep conviction about the nature of the church. I still remember the pain I felt when I first understood (with James Dunn’s help) what Paul was on about in Galatians 2, when he attacked Peter for withdrawing from table fellowship. The division of the church, especially since the Reformation, has largely been a story of horror and tragedy, with the occasional act of faithful separation thrown in. I regard the division of the church as one of the great evils of the modern world, which has seen more than its share of evils (many of which are, I believe, quite closely related to the division of the church). What more horrific sight can we imagine than to see Christ again crucified? Christ is not divided. I think our main response to this half-millennium of Western division, and millennium-plus of East-West division should be deep mourning and repentance.
My Protestantism, my reformed catholicity, isn’t at all in conflict with that passion for church unity. There is no tension at all. On the contrary, it’sbecause I am so passionate to see the church reunited that I, not grudgingly but cheerfully, stay where I am. My summary reason for staying put is simple: I’m too catholic to become Catholic or Orthodox.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, May 21, 2012 at 12:12 pm
Adam and Eve seize the forbidden fruit before it’s time. When they cover themselves, they again jump the gun – using leaves to hide their shameful nakedness. They aren’t ready for that either, and the Lord gives them skins of a sacrificed animal to cover. From that time until the Last Adam, human beings come into Yahweh’s presence wearing animal skins. At Sinai, Yahweh allows a handful of people to approach Him wearing plants as well as animal skin – the linen + wool garments of the priests. Most draw near through animals, clothed in the smoke of a sacrificial substitute. By clothing themselves with leaves, Adam and Eve were claiming a priestly privilege they did not have.
In Revelation, the bride and the saints are clothed in linen (19:8, 14). No animal skins at all. And more centrally, the clothing of the saints is Christ Himself. The progression of clothing is from animal skins, through the animal/plant combination of the priests, to the human covering that Jesus gives.
The progression in clothing is matched by a progression in food. Old Testament sacrifices were meat, but the eschatological meal is from plants, grain and grapes. The progression is also from animal to human: Israel feasted on the animals that figured the coming human savior; we feast on Christ Himself.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, May 20, 2012 at 7:01 am
Summarizing the 16th-century Reformed formulations of Eucharistic theology, John Williamson Nevin (The Mystical Presence: And the Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s Supper (Mercersburg Theology Study)
“The sacrament is made to carry with it an objective force so far as its principle design is concerned. It is not simply suggestive, commemorative or representational. It is not a sign, a picture, deriving its significance from the mind of the beholder. The virtue which it possesses is not put into it by the faith of the worshipper in the first place, to be taken out of it again by the same faith in the same form. It is not imagined of course in the case that the ordinance can have any virtue without faith; that it can confer grace in a purely mechanical way. All thought of the opus operatum, in this sense, is utterly repudiated. Still faith does not properly clothe the sacrament with its power. It is the condition of its efficacy for the communicant, but not the principle of the power itself. That belongs to the institution in its own nature. The signs are bound to what they represent not subjectively simply in the thought of the worshipper, but objectively by the force of a divine appointment. . . . The grace goes inseparably along with the signs and is truly present for all who are prepared to make it their own.”
This is, I think, a fair summary of the Reformation view, and I think it has both enormous strengths and a serious weakness.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 4:55 am
One of the most heartening developments in the Reformed world in the past two decades is the renewal of interest in the Mercersberg movement. And one of the most heartening developments within that development is Wipf & Stock’s plan to publish a multi-volume collection of Mercersberg theology, under the general editorship of my hyperenergetic friend Brad Littlejohn. You can hear Brad talk about the project here: http://trinitytalkradio.com/2012/05/mercersburg-theology-with-brad-littlejohn/.
Some of the material to be published has not been published since it appeared in the Mercersberg Review in the 19th century, but the first volume in the series is a fresh edition of Nevin’s classic The Mystical Presence: And the Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s Supper (Mercersburg Theology Study), with thorough newly written introductions, explanatory notes, translations, etc. Get it, study it, and look for the future volumes in the series over the next few years.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Christianity brought the “end of sacrifice,” the replacement of the bloody animal sacrifices of paganism and Judaism with the sacrificial feast of the Eucharist.
But not quite the end, or at least not quite everywhere. In a 1903 article, Fred Conybeare explored the “survival of animal sacrifices inside the Christian church.” The Armenian church is a case in point. When King Irdat was converted by the preaching of Gregory the Illuminator, himself the scion of the “leading pagan priestly family” that had made chief pagan shrine part of the family estate, Gregory gave advice regarding the distribution of sacrificial perquisites to Christian priests: “Your portions of the offerings shall be the hide and right-hand parts of the spine, the limb and fat, and the tail and heart and lobe of lungs, and the tripe with the lard; of the ribs and shank-bones a part, the tongue and the right ear, and the right eye and all the secret parts.”
This custom long outlasted the age of Gregory, which was the age of Diocletian.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 6:42 am
Genesis 2:9; 3:6: Out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. . . . So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
The word translated as “covet” is first used in Genesis 2-3, where it means “desirable.” When Eve looks at the fruit of the tree of knowledge she judges that it is good and desirable to make wise. Before Eve tasted the fruit, she had already sinned by coveting her neighbor’s fruit. Yahweh was the first victim of greed and theft.
But here’s the thing: Eve is right.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 6:35 am
Genesis 49:12: He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.
As Pastor Sumpter has emphasized, we live in a world of deception, seduction, and lies, of hype and hypocrisy. Men have been liars since Adam’s fall, but our technologies pose fresh dangers. The serpent that deceives us is of our own making.
Flash and flair are today more important than substance. Advertisements entice and amuse, but tell us little about the product advertised. We see a cell phone movie on Youtube and feel like eye-witnesses. How can we find the truth behind the image?
But the temptation is more fundamental.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 6:42 am
Matthew 28:18-20: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.
Baptism is a naming ceremony. Your daughter already has a name, and a meaningful one. Baptism adds another name because in baptism she becomes a member of a new family. She receives the family name of Father, Son, and Spirit. At the same time, God Himself takes on a new name, for here He promises to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and now Elaina.
We Protestants don’t like to say that baptism works “automatically,” because in some respects it doesn’t. Baptism doesn’t guarantee eternal salvation. But in this respect – as a naming ceremony – baptism is automatic. Everyone who is baptized receives a new name, whether they want it or not.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 5:58 am
Ministers raise hands over the congregation at the closing benediction, in imitation of Aaronic priests (Leviticus 9:22) and of Jesus (Luke 24:50). Why?
Jesus blessed the disciples just before He parted from them, ascending into a cloud (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9-10). Benediction is linked with ascension. Jesus spreads His hands, and then flies up to be enthroned in the glory He had with His Father from the beginning.
And this connects with the common biblical image of the wings of Yahweh. Yahweh protects Israel with His wings as they leave Egypt (Deuteronomy 32:11), Ruth finds refuge under the wings of Boaz, which are the wings of Yahweh (Ruth 2:12), and the Psalmist longs to find refuge in the shadow of the Lord’s wings (Psalm 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 61:4; 63:7; etc.).
The minister places the Name of the Triune God on the church in the benediction (Numbers 6:27), and he declares that they go out from worship under the protective wings of Yahweh, ascending with wings like eagles. It’s natural, then, that the minister should spread out the wings of his arms over the people as they depart, which, because the minister is commissioned by Jesus to speak and act in His name, are the wings of the Lord – the wings of the Father, the wings of the Spirit-dove, and the wings of the Sun of righteousness who rises with healing.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, April 23, 2012 at 9:16 am
Acts 2:43-45: They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.
“There shall be no poor among you,” Yahweh told Israel. Yahweh promised to bless Israel in the land so that there would be plenty for all, as long as they kept covenant. Israel failed miserably.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, April 15, 2012 at 6:00 am
Gadamer writes, “a picture is situated halfway between a sign and a symbol. Its representing is neither a pure pointing-to-something [sign] nor a pure taking-the-place-of-something [symbol]. It is this intermediate position that raises it to a unique ontological status. Artificial signs and symbols alike do not – like the picture – acquire their signifying function from their own content, but must be taken as signs or symbols. We call the origin of their signifying function their ‘institution.’”
What might these distinctions say about sacramental theology? On Gadamer’s terms, the bread and wine are clearly signs or symbols, depending on one’s theory of the real presence (in contrast to signs, symbols can “so fully take the place of what is revered that the latter is present in them” – e.g., veneration of the Host). Water, bread and wine are signs or symbols also because they are instituted – they bear the meaning they do not because of their inherent qualities but because Jesus said, Do these actions with these things.
Still, I think it’s helpful to pursue a sacramental theology of the picture (in Gadamer’s sense). The sacramental signs are not, after all, arbitrary; they bear the meaning they bear because of Christ’s institution. But one can also consider how they are picture-like, “acquiring their signifying function from their own content.” Water has certain qualities that make it a “picture” of death and resurrection with Christ, exodus, flood, cleansing, etc. Bread and wine are pictures of Jesus’ self-offering as our food. Technical sacramental theology has often considered the sacraments so exclusively as signs or symbols that it has ignored the specific content of the representing things and actions. We find a sacramental theology of the picture in sermons, in typologies, in catechetical addresses, and this mode of sacramental theology provides a necessary corrective to technical sacramental theologies of sign and symbol.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Monday, April 9, 2012 at 10:47 am
John 21:15: Jesus said to Peter, “Feed my lambs.”
There are two charcoal fires in the last chapters of John’s gospel, and Peter is at both of them. He warms himself by the charcoal fire in the court of the high priest. There he denies Jesus, and when Jesus looks at him across the courtyard he goes out and weeps bitterly. When Jesus rises from the dead, Peter joins Jesus for breakfast beside the sea at another charcoal fire. Two fires, two altars, two loyalties.
For several days, Peter must have thought that rebuking glance across the courtyard was the last time he would see the face of Jesus. But the resurrection is the good news of second chances, and third, and fourth.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, April 8, 2012 at 5:01 am
The Christian Science Monitor reports that Ethiopian hyenas keep Lent: “ In the 55 days before Easter in Ethiopia, hyenas are forced to turn from scavenging to hunting to make up for Christians’ fasting traditions. Observant Ethiopian Christains give up meat and dairy for Lent, and it appears some spotted Hyenas are observing the religious holiday, too, by adjusting their diets to find the protein they can no longer get from trash cans. Members of the Orthodox Tewahedo Church give up meat and dairy during the Lent period in Ethiopia. Now, a new study of hyena droppings finds that local hyenas, deprived of butcher scraps during this time period, supplement their diets by hunting donkeys for food instead.”
It’s like the old adage: If hyenas do it….
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, April 7, 2012 at 7:54 am
There’s a tiny liturgical movement occurring these days among Reformed churches, and a larger shift happening among Protestant Evangelicals.
Critics of the movement rightly raise the question of whether this is simply another expression of American Christian consumerism: It’s the fad du jour, without any solid rooting in Scripture or tradition. That, as I say, is an open question, a necessary caution. Liturgical interest among Evangelicals might in a decade or two go the way of camp meetings and seeker-friendliness, neither of which entirely disappeared but both of which had their 10 minutes before becoming yesterday’s news.
Critics also worry when they look at the state of “liturgical churches” today. The Episcopal church is a mess, incapable of affirming even the most obvious biblical standards of sexual morality. The ELCA and PCUSA are not far behind. (Catholics and Orthodox have maintained biblical standards, and for that reason tend to be more attractive to wandering Evangelicals.) Aren’t you worried, critics ask, of losing your biblical coordinates?
More generally, the mainline churches are, so it appears to Evangelicals, full of nominal Christians who go through the liturgical motions but don’t know or care to obey Jesus. Aren’t you worried, critics ask, that liturgical Reformed and Evangelical churches will go the same way? Aren’t you worried that liturgical churches makes it too easy for people to hide?
Here I think the critics are almost entirely off-base. And the answer to this criticism is not to say that Reformed or Evangelicals who pursue liturgical renewal need somehow to be both liturgical and anti-liturgical at the same time; the answer is not that Evangelicals should become formal while retaining their traditional hostility to form. That is incoherent, not a way forward but a labyrinth from which there is no escape.
The answer is to say that the “liturgical churches” are not properly liturgical in the first place. In fact, for much of church history the church has not been properly liturgical.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, April 7, 2012 at 6:20 am
An exaltation of tweets.
To observe Lent rightly, we have to be persuaded that we already stand in God’s favor.
Ash Wednesday reminds us to number our days. It helps us gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).
We keep Easter to manifest and deepen our prior share in resurrection. We observe Lent to manifest and deepen our share in the cross.
As a focused pursuit of the fruits of holiness, Lent is rooted in union with Christ, who is our sanctification.
Lent is the season of blood and guts and flesh. It is the supremely anti-Gnostic season.
Some say Lent inhibits the church’s cultural impact. To that, there are three answers: Christendom, Byzantium, & Bach.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, April 4, 2012 at 6:54 am
Galatians 3:27-28: All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free man; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
We live in a feminized culture, and that feminization began with the church. Here in Moscow, we have set ourselves against these cultural confusions by emphasizing biblical teaching about the headship of husbands, the authority of fathers, and the leadership of men in the church.
But to keep our balance, we should remember what the church looked like when it first erupted into the Greco-Roman world. Romans already knew all about male headship.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 5:53 am
Hovey suggests that the exhortation to “lose your life” is ecclesially and eucharistically embodied: “Individual bodies that feed on the body of Christ through incorporation and participation no longer belong to individual disciples; they belong to the church. This is a loss only insofar as the fear that death names continues to be a basis for making decisions about how to live. . . . trying to preserve the body [or individuality] inevitably means being cut off from the community of the most desicive body. . . . The disciple’s life is lost through participation in the broken bread of the cross, the fate of the martyr-church.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 8:26 am
Another quotation from Wells, summing up the thesis of his book: “God has given his people everything they need to worship him, to be his friends, and to eat with him. He has done this by giving them the body of Christ. He gives his people the body of Christ in three forms – Jesus, the Church, and the Eucharist. In each case he gives his people more than enough. He overwhelms them by the abundance of his gifts. His people may respond in three ways. They may turn away from his good gifts, and strive to make a life on their own resources. This is the perversity of sin. They may find that their imaginations cannot stretch to the enormity of grace and, fearing that they might drown in the overflowing gifts of God, they reduce God to a manageable size and deal only with the gifts they can comprehend. This is ignorance, the poverty of moral imagination. Or they can open heart and mind, body and soul to discovering and receiving these teeming gifts, and shape their lives and the lives of their communities according to the practice of embodying the abundant gifts of God. This is what it means to be transformed by Jesus, molded by the Church, and sustained by the Eucharist. This is what it means to be God’s companions.”
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, March 31, 2012 at 7:56 am
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