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1 week ago | 
firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart
Peter Harrison is one of today’s finest intellectual historians. He writes clearly, explains complex ideas lucidly without sacrificing accuracy or complexity, and supports his arguments with massive learning, from both original sources and secondary literature. Most of his books focus on the formation of modern concepts of “science” and “religion,” most succinctly in his 2011 Gifford Lectures, The Territories of Science and Religion. Harrison’s latest, Some New World, paints on a larger canvas.
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2 months ago | 
1819news.com | Peter J. Leithart
On Feb. 18, 2025, President Trump fulfilled a campaign promise by signing an executive order on in vitro fertilization (IVF). The order solicited policy recommendations that would “protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health play costs for such treatments.” Reports indicate that Alabama Sen. Katie Britt has been advising Trump on his IVF stance.
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Jan 17, 2025 | 
firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart
Élisabeth-Paule Labat (1897–1975) was an accomplished pianist and composer when she entered the abbey of Saint-Michel de Kergonan in her early twenties. She devoted her later years to writing theology and an “Essay on the Mystery of Music,” published a decade ago as The Song That I Am, translated by Erik Varden. It’s a brilliant and beautiful essay, but what sets it apart from most explorations of music is its deeply theological character.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart
For Christians, the advent of the Son of God has become commonplace. It’s celebrated, sung, preached about, wondered at, but simultaneously domesticated by nativity scenes, cutesy Advent calendars, and cozy Christmas traditions. It’s easy to forget that Advent cracked the world wide open.
Ancient religion operated, as Felix Ó Murchadha puts it in his A Phenomenology of Christian Life, by a “sacred logic.” The world was one—coherent, orderly, hierarchical.
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Nov 22, 2024 | 
firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart
Midterm predictions of a Red Wave turned out to be two years premature. Donald Trump will take office in January with the support of a Republican House and a Republican Senate. The margins are thin, but one can accomplish a lot with thin margins.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
mereorthodoxy.com | Peter J. Leithart
I’ve never been much interested in, or very good at, managing money. Fortunately, I didn’t need to be. I had savvy ancestors. The best financial advice I can give is: Choose your parents wisely. Login to read more Sign in or create a free account to access Subscriber-only content. Sign in Register
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart
Jane Austen’s Darknessby julia yostwiseblood Books, 86 pages, $8
A glance at the cover of Julia Yost’s short book on Jane Austen is enough to tell you this isn’t your typical study of Austen. No flowers or formal gardens, no manor houses, no pastels or swirls—only the shocking title, Jane Austen’s Darkness, in stark white letters against a pitch-black background. You can judge this book by its cover.
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Oct 11, 2024 | 
firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart
Back in the misty recesses of time—2020—the Los Angeles Times announced that newly-elected President Biden would remake the United States in the image and likeness of California. The prospect is a fantasy for progressives, a nightmare for conservatives. And, as Joel Kotkin has detailed in Compact, the California model is a nightmare for many of the state’s residents. While government and government-supported jobs have grown, the private sector has shrunk.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart
Can nations be baptized? Jesus thought so. His last words in Matthew’s Gospel are, “Go therefore and disciple the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you.” So did Paul, for whom the exodus was the baptism of Israel: Our fathers “were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:2).
For the first millennium of the church’s history, national baptisms were a matter of course.
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Sep 13, 2024 | 
firstthings.com | Peter J. Leithart
Sunday morning, June 16, 2024. Two dogs, Molly and Linda, lounge on the covered patio of Nazaret House in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, as I eat a breakfast of fried eggs, ham and cheese, roasted vegetables, and sourdough bread with two pastor friends, one Polish, one Ukrainian. As breakfast winds down, children from the neighborhood’s high-rise apartments start coming through the gate. By the time church begins, twenty or more have gathered at Nazaret for Sunday School.
