Friendly Neighborhood Philosopher
Every now and then, a work of art comes along that helps us think through the thicket of mysteries that is the human condition, shedding new light on the…
October 2026
Print Edition
October 2026 Print Edition
America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life
Talkin’ God and Football
Friendly Neighborhood Philosopher
Every now and then, a work of art comes along that helps us think through the thicket…
The Left Is Right About the Bible
“Texas Public School Students Will Be Required to Read the Bible,” warned a headline in the New…
Creedal Orthodoxy Won’t Save Us
Pundits tell us that we are moving beyond the culture wars. Left and right are merging in…
The Scandal of Jewish Belief
The Gospel of Matthew ends with this promise of Jesus to his disciples: “Behold, I am with…
Icarus Descending
Notes on Anosmia
One morning several years ago, as my wife, Wendy, and I were having breakfast together, I had…
Empire of Unreality
Shiva Naipaul (1945–1985) was the author of three novels and two books of mordant dispatches from places…
Who Paces the AI Frontier?
Dario Amodei wants to give society time to deliberate about artificial intelligence. I am not qualified to…
The Vatican and Russia
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See’s “foreign minister” (Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, to…
The Making of Roger Scruton
Cambridge, October 1964. A new undergraduate named Mary Hoffman is sitting in the corner at a party,…
Seven Years Alone on Wildcat Mountain
I didn’t like doing my spring cleaning in March. March is cold on Wildcat Mountain. It was…
Living Humanae Vitae in Poland
Humanae Vitae remains alive, if not entirely well, fifty-eight years after its promulgation. When Pope Paul VI…
Harold Bloom Sold Western Civilization Short
I was introduced to the culture wars of the 1980s and ’90s after they were already over. As…
The “Right to Die” Will Be The Death of Solidarity
Imagine that you work as a janitor in the office building of a large corporation. One evening…
The Protestant Missions History Forgot
The World’s Reformation is a splendid achievement. Extensively researched, Alec Ryrie’s book covers an extraordinary global scope,…
Lethe
He thought he saw her in the orchid house / and all the flowers seemed to disappear…
On Suddenly Having Several Children
“God never gives us more than we can take,” / the midwife told us, after catching…
Centaur
The Etruscan centaur holds up his right hand, / not palm outward as if to stop chariot…
Is Sex Necessary?
E. B. White and James Thurber’s prescient satire of the sexual revolution in America, Is Sex Necessary?,…
The Good of Government
In his first inaugural address, President Reagan announced that “government is not the solution to our problem;…
Living with a Mind
I was brought up in a culture that made no special place for the “intellectual” as a…
The Work of Mourning
In a significant essay entitled “Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud wrote of “the work of mourning,” meaning the…
The End of the University
Universities exist to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and culture that will prepare them for life,…
Remembering Sir Roger
In his poem “On Decency,” Sir Roger Vernon Scruton declares “That Life itself is not enough, /…
