The name Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy shows up now and then in books and essays I read, but for a long time I knew almost nothing about him or his apparently brilliant ideas. Now Peter Leithart provides readers with a glimpse (summary isn’t the right word for such a deliberately unsystematic thinker) of the fertile and generous ways of Rosenstock-Huessy’s mind. In “The Relevance of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy,” posted on the First Things blog, Leithart shows how Rosenstock-Huessy (1888–1973) anticipated various postmodern insights, in much the same way (it would seem) as did Michael Polanyi.
Here is a paragraph from Leithart’s essay:
“To take a more extended example: During the modern period, he writes in The Christian Future (1946), people believe that all large organizations are rational, legal, and mechanical as well as logical and systematic. At the center of modern institutions, there stands a typewriter (a machine, and specifically a machine for generating plans and reports). Moderns are puzzled by the perfectly unsystematic, irrational, antilogical institution, the poorest organization on earth but yet fully alive — the family, which to the modern mentality seems a colorful folly. At the center of the family is not a typewriter but a bed and a stove, the unquenchable illogicality of the family perturbs planners with a blueprint for the future.”
Related reading and listening
- Critiquing “empire criticism” — Allan Bevere and Peter Leithart evaluate “empire criticism,” a way of reading the New Testament with an anti-imperial focus. (36 minutes)
- Lessons from Leviticus — The book of Leviticus may be assumed to be irrelevant for charting a way through the challenges of modernity. Theologian Peter J. Leithart disagrees. (22 minutes)
- “Christianity” is gnostic — Peter Leithart on why what the Church is and practices is not a “religion”
- The simplicity beneath the complexity — Theologian Peter J. Leithart offers an outline of the book of Revelation, focusing on the themes of the challenge of faithfulness and the meaning of martyrdom. (46 minutes)
- The impact of the rise of non-liturgical worship — Peter J. Leithart reviews Lori Branch’s book Rituals of Spontaneity, in which Branch argues that an “ideology of spontaneity” has led to the modern rise of non-liturgical forms of worship. (29 minutes)
- When “follow the science” doesn’t work — Peter Leithart reflects on the all-too-human nature of science and the effects of quarantine on the Church’s embodied mission. (32 minutes)
- The public and political dimensions of gratitude — Peter Leithart and Mark Mitchell both assert that gratitude has a public and political concern, and that Christianity caused a significant shift in the understanding of gratitude. (19 minutes)
- Deconstructing the Enlightenment — Peter Leithart discusses Johann Georg Hamann’s insights about the nature of language and his prophetic critique of the Enlightenment. (17 minutes)
- Fr. Chad Hatfield and Peter J. Leithart on Alexander Schmemann — Alexander Schmemann’s book asks a set of questions about “Christianity and culture” that typically don’t get asked, questions that re-center our lives in gratitude and worship. (20 minutes)
- Peter J. Leithart on Church unity — Peter J. Leithart discusses how the sixteenth-century Colloquy of Marburg shifted the understanding of the Eucharist from something that Christians primarily do together to something about which Christians think or believe a certain way. (70 minutes)
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 136 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Thomas Albert Howard, Mark Noll, Andrew Pettegree, Peter J. Leithart, Norm Klassen, James Litton, and Joseph O’Brien
- Peter J. Leithart: The Cultural Consequences of Christian Division — Peter J. Leithart discusses how the sixteenth-century Colloquy of Marburg shifted the understanding of the Eucharist from something that Christians primarily do together to something about which Christians think or believe a certain way. (69 minutes)
- In defense of unity — Peter J. Leithart on the relationship between ecclesial unity and religious liberty
- Not just a counterculture — Peter J. Leithart on the public (and prophetic) mission of the Church
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 119 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Mary Eberstadt, Allan Bevere, Peter J. Leithart, Steven Boyer, Karen Dieleman, and Peter Phillips
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 104 — FEATURED GUESTS: James Le Fanu, Garret Keizer, Daniel Ritchie, Monica Ganas, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Peter J. Leithart
- Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 92 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jake Halpern, Stephen J. Nichols, Richard M. Gamble, Peter J. Leithart, Bill Vitek, and Craig Holdrege
