Peter Leithart's The End of Protestantism: Pursing Unity in a Fragmented Church is a flawed attempt at a worthy cause. The mission statement should be encouraged, the practical exhortations are needed, but the material presentation is lacking.
All tagged Peter Leithart
Denominationalism and Racism
For Leithart's vision of a unified church, latent racism and individualism — to a certain extent congregationalism — are unacceptable within the church.
Defining Protestantism
People are reading Leithart under the presumption that he has all the answers. But he never claims such. He sees the unification of the church as a pneumatological event.
Childish Lawkeepers
Lord only knows much ink has been spilled over Jesus’ famous words “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17).
God Aims at the Whole Creation
Jesus has initiated this glorious redemption and he has ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty from whence he has poured out His Spirit on His Church who will continue the work of redemption until all of Christ’s enemies have been made a footstool under his feet (Psalm 110:1).
The Unsettling Gospel of God
By allowing the Gospel of Matthew to tell the story it wants to tell (rather than telling the story of a doctrine) Leithart brings out
The Great Commission
Once you begin to understand the ways in which the Bible refers to itself, you begin to peel back layers to passages that before were seemingly shrouded in mystery and hid their glory from you.
Incarnation & New Creation
Eschatology must submit to the story of Scripture and follow the story as it leads us to Christ. Too often eschatology (and theology in general) has abandoned the narrative of scripture. This can only lead to confusion and ultimately away from Christ.
There is No "Intertestamental" Period
History belongs to God. He is the great author. To look at periods of time in history and assume that God is not acting is to think like a pagan.
City Planning and the Gospel
Before recent times, church architecture meant something. Recently the protestant faith in the West has come to be understood in (almost) entirely intellectual terms. “Belief” is the core and sole tenet. Due to this emphasis on an intellectualized faith, aspects like architecture, city planning, and aesthetics in general, have gone by the wayside.
Restoring the "Natural" Tracks
Infant baptism, in part, looks to redeem the created order that God established in Adam. Were sin to not have entered into the world there would be no distinction between a child’s growth in godliness and their “natural” growth as a human (both physically and psycho-socially)
The New Testament Tells the End of the Story
The Old and New Testaments build on and relate to each other as much as the chapters of a really good book; even more so actually. Thus, if we are to understand both testaments as we should, we need to be intimately acquainted with both, not just the New.
Church Calendars, National Calendars, & Hallmark Calendars
Individual choice, instant gratification, and sensory titillation are stalwarts in the American church because they are stalwarts in American secularism: the true enculturating power behind much of American Christianity. The church has been called to be a new world within the bounds of an old world. Yet we seem to content ourselves with the ways and world of the first Adam even while we are called to pray for the kingdom of the second Adam to come on Earth as it is in heaven.
A Morbid Form of Self-Analysis
As moderns, we tend to believe that we are capable of objectively removing ourselves from our relationship with Christ and stand outside of it and judge it properly. Not only is this impossible, it would be a sinful approach to things even if we were capable of doing it.
Grace is Not an Object
Salvation isn't a punched ticket to heaven. Grace is not some sort of ephemeral substance that must be used like gasoline, but only for the human soul.
Salvation Must Take a Social Form
If Christians begin to think this way about salvation then there is a strong chance the vitality and centrality of the church would not be overlooked as it so often is in our individualistic culture.
Book Review: Traces of the Trinity
Leithart wants to show that there is a pattern “mutual indwelling” to the created order. This mutual indwelling is seen most clearly when we understand that the vitality of the way objects and people relate to one another is through their inhabiting of one another. This co-inhabitation does not blur the lines of difference between objects but rather is created by the distinct differences inherent to the objects.
Should We Talk to Babies
In the same way that a newborn child learns it’s given name through symbols so too does an infant who is baptized learn it’s Christian name.
Uniquely "Me" Because of "You"
We are all uniquely individual. But our unique individuality can only be understood as it is born through the indwelling of others (like mothers through whom we are literally born).