Volume 149 of the Journal includes an interview with Dru Johnson about his book Human Rites: The Power of Rituals, Habits, and Sacraments. Today’s Feature supplements that interview. It is a review by Peter J. Leithart of Lori Branch’s Rituals of Spontaneity: Sentiment & Secularism from Free Prayer to Wordsworth. Branch argues that the modern rise of a non-liturgical form of Christian faith is “the most dramatic sea change in 2,000 years of Christian worship and practice.” Leithart helpfully summarizes and evaluates her arguments. Leithart’s review was originally published in Touchstone magazine under the title “Freedom & Propriety.”
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James K. A. Smith explains how education always involves the formation of affections and how the form of Christian education should imitate patterns of formation evident in historic Christian liturgy. (15 minutes)
Liturgical scholar Robin Leaver clarifies some misconceptions about Martin Luther’s commitment to congregational singing. (10 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)
Marva Dawn on spiritual formation and being Church — This Feature presents an interview with Marva Dawn from Volume 38 of the Journal, during which she talks about concerns discussed in two of her books, related to the spiritual formation of children and a more holistic understanding of sex and intimacy. (23 minutes)
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 149 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Dru Johnson, Steven L. Porter, Reinhard Hütter, Matthew Levering, David Lyle Jeffrey, and Christopher Phillips
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 137 — FEATURED GUESTS:
Gilbert Meilaender, James L. Nolan, Joel Salatin, Michael Di Fuccia, Robin Leaver, and Michael Marissen
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
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 101 — FEATURED GUESTS: James Davison Hunter, Paul Spears, Steven Loomis, James K. A. Smith, Thomas Long, and William T. Cavanaugh
Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 92 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jake Halpern, Stephen J. Nichols, Richard M. Gamble, Peter J. Leithart, Bill Vitek, and Craig Holdrege
A forgotten prophet — Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy: “Moderns are puzzled by the perfectly unsystematic, irrational, antilogical institution, the poorest organization on earth but yet fully alive — the family.”
