Peter J. Leithart
First Things
Birmingham, AL, United States
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Past articles by Peter:
The Enchanted Worlds of Alan Garner
Alan Garner has for a long, long time, been plotting complex stories and achieving uncanny effects with matter-of-fact but densely allusive prose. → Read More
Missouri Macbeths
Lots of bad people get their deserts, but the world of Ozark is one where sinners cannot be laundered and aren’t judged. → Read More
Man’s Marian Future
Only through tribulation does hope have its advent in the world, and all this comes to literal fulfillment in Mary. → Read More
Love Stronger Than Death:
Here is the hope of the gospel: There is a love stronger than death, a love more jealously possessive than the grave. → Read More
Piles of Wrinkled Prose
It may sound miserable, but desperation and obsession are what make finishing up the most delicious part of the whole book-writing process. → Read More
A Tale of Two Imperialisms
The shapers of Hawaii's Christian monarchy lie alongside conspirators who undid that same monarchy. → Read More
God Created Wholes, Not Parts
As time progresses, science points more towards teleology and away from Darwin. → Read More
Consensus by Censorship
Since the beginning of the Biden administration, there have been rumblings that the White House and federal agencies have also privately pressured social media companies to squelch dissent. → Read More
God's Holy Nation
Observing the online reaction to my column, I fear I was misunderstood. Some apparently read it as a brief for the primacy of the “spiritual” over the “political.” That isn’t my view. I advocate instead the deconstruction of the spiritual/political dualism and the primacy of ecclesial politics. → Read More
Against National Conservatism
As critics have pointed out, the NatCon statement ignores the universal ethical and political vision at the foundation of Western civilization. → Read More
Poetry as Prayer
Most of Kenneth Steven’s tales are simple, hardly worth the telling. But they’re the kind of tales that are the texture of life, like the stories we recount at the dinner table. Steven’s stories stay with us, moments that remind us of the small delights and instant tragedies of life. Robert Penn Warren once wrote that the best and most natural reading of a poem isn’t the first or fifth or… → Read More
Second Saul | Peter J. Leithart
Jesus snatched Saul of Tarsus from the tragic path of the first Saul, which is how he learned of the cunning power of Jesus—a king who enlists Sauls to be heralds of David’s kingdom, who turns Sauls into Jonathans. → Read More
Our Sexy Life | Peter J. Leithart
Sex has become abortive even when it doesn’t end with an abortion. → Read More
A Tom Wolfe for the 2020s
The Index of Self-Destructive Acts is the Big New York Book of the 2020s, as Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities was for the 1980s. → Read More
Guns and the American Soul
To gain moral insight into American violence, Christians need to disentangle and properly order our loves. Only then will we be able to assess accurately what is good and what is evil in American gun culture. → Read More
Steph Curry and the Aristotelian Principle
From Curry there’s no malice, no taunting, no improper pride. His laughs and gestures and shimmies spring from delighted surprise at his own excellence. He’s the Aristotelian Principle incarnate. → Read More
Babies Are a Lot Like Us
“Suffer the little children to come to me” isn’t a piece of pious sentiment, but a starting point for scientific discovery. → Read More
The Tears of Things
Having suffered all, Christ can sympathize with all. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. → Read More
The Power of Pain
Humans have always avoided painful conditions, but today our instinct to recoil has been institutionalized. → Read More
Ethiopia in Biblical History
Every time you see Ethiopia is still on the map, you’re seeing real-world proof of the faithfulness of God. → Read More