Matthew Schmitz aptly describes “Biden’s Collegiate Catholicism” (April 2024) in two senses. First, Biden’s agenda takes its ideological cues from, and serves the class interests of, the “most formidable redoubts of Democratic power”: the universities. Second, Biden’s politics embody . . . . Continue Reading »
Joshua Mitchell has made a strong case that religion has returned to public life. In American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time, he argues that growing numbers of Americans are harried and oppressed by unaddressed guilt and shame. The recession of Christianity as . . . . Continue Reading »
On this episode, Jeremy Christiansen joins the podcast to discuss his new book, From the Susquehanna to the Tiber: A Memoir of Conversion from Mormonism to the Roman Catholic Church. Continue Reading »
Abiding by moral rules, especially when they are explained meaningfully and mercifully, gives teenagers swimming in a sea of relativism and nihilism a “moral vocabulary.” Sympathy isn’t enough. People need norms. Continue Reading »
Human WrongsR. R. Reno, agreeing with Yuval Levin, believes we must rid ourselves of our nostalgia (“Public Square,” May). It is banal, of course, to suggest that we cannot live in the past. But is it nostalgic to yearn for a time when workers enjoyed a measure of security, families were intact, . . . . Continue Reading »
Mormons must appreciate Richard Mouw’s good faith effort to find common ground between us and “orthodox” Christians, as well as First Things’s according him the space to publish this effort. I reply in the same spirit, hoping both correctly to identify common ground and to explain . . . . Continue Reading »
In the spring of 1836, a few weeks before his Kirtland, Ohio, baptism into the Mormon Church, Lorenzo Snow met with Joseph Smith Sr., the father of Mormonism’s founder. Snow was deeply impressed by this encounter. He came to see it as a turning point in his spiritual journey, especially because of . . . . Continue Reading »
Are Mormons really moving closer to Orthodoxy? According to Richard Mouw, retired president of Fuller Seminary, they are. But I am not so sure that the examples he gives represent a real theological movement.
The following was delivered Friday, March 25, 2016, at Claremont Graduate University by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Society I feel privileged to address this important religious . . . . Continue Reading »
The Mormons know how to keep everyone guessing. A week ago, they were looking more and more like the liberals in the conservative-on-sexual-matters religious world. Last month, LDS apostle Dallin H. Oaks surprised church members by publicly criticizing defiant Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, and earlier . . . . Continue Reading »
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