The Baptized Body by Peter J. Leithart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
For me, this book, like Leithart’s writings generally, was both a hit and a miss. Let’s take it from the top.
Chapter one, “Starting before the Beginning,” was intended to clear “enough ground to move ahead” to discuss the biblical texts about baptism. This chapter seemed a bit choppy, as Leithart’s hitting on different philosophical, ontological, and theological topics. It was intended to be controversial with section headings such as, “Why Sacraments Are Not Signs,” “Why Sacraments Are Not Means of Grace,” and “Why Sacraments Are Not Symbols.” That said, I found the concept of Sacraments as rituals to be compelling and helpful. Sacraments can, however, be signs, means of grace, symbols, AND rituals. (more…)
A new acquaintance of mine (I hope we become friends, but it’s too early to call him a friend) has made 
Here’s one of the things I’ve been wondering for years: what do people actually mean when they utter or write the words “God want everyone to be saved”? These words are commonly used; it is regularly asserted of God that he wants everyone to be saved. In this post, I do not offer an answer to this question. This is partly because I don’t tend to use this sort of language. Even so, I do seek to understand what folks mean when they use it. Thus, I want to press beyond sloganizing and get past mere equivocation. I want to begin to explore some different possible meanings of that proposition to see if I can make sense out of them without doing damage to classical Christian theology. What I mean by that is that Christians have almost always (rightly) held that God is self-consistent, that is, consistent with himself. Now, sometimes it takes some work for us to understand that consistency, but it is always there. So, let’s move forward and consider possible meanings for this very common sentiment. 
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like The Wonder Years. We love the nostalgic feeling of the show. We love that its set in early-1960s suburbia, and is replete with witty retrospective commentary. We can easily identify with so many of the characters. Preeminently, we love and identify with Kevin. His character is very believable (warts and all). What’s more, we have the gruff and detached father, the sweet mother, the hippie older sister, the dumb and domineering older brother, the cute girl across the street, and (most importantly for this post) the best friend, Paul.
