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The Benedict Option and the Way of Exchange

Alan Jacobs

Surely there has never been a richer and more deeply faithful model of Christian faith and practice than that offered by the leaders of the Church in Roman Cappadocia...

​Russian Brahmin

Alan Jacobs

Laurusby eugene vodolazkintranslated by lisa haydenoneworld, 384 pages, $24.99 Eugene Vodolazkin’s novel Laurus has been much praised, especially by Christians, and rightly so. It is a fine novel. But...

From the May Issue: “Lena Dunham’s Inviolable Self”

Alan Jacobs

In an episode from the first season of HBO’s series Girls , Hannah Horvath”played by the show’s creator and chief writer, Lena Dunham”is having sex with her occasional lover...

Lena Dunham’s Inviolable Self

Alan Jacobs

In an episode from the first season of HBO’s series Girls, Hannah Horvath—played by the show’s creator and chief writer, Lena Dunham—is having sex with her occasional lover Adam...

Against Stupidity

Alan Jacobs

I have been thinking a lot about stupidity lately, largely, I suppose, because I spend a good deal of time online. I define stupidity as “remediable but unremedied ignorance,”...

A Prophet Wrongly Honored

Alan Jacobs

Terry Eagleton made his name in the 1980s by demonstrating that it is possible to write wittily and even elegantly about literary theory. At the time this was something...

On the Works of Kahlil Gibran

Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs reviewed the great twentieth-century poet’s complete oeuvre, and found it verse than expected. From the November 2007 issue. n I n Expansive and yet vacuous is the...

Beyond the Wild Wood

Alan Jacobs

The Annotated Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, edited by Annie Gauger. W.W. Norton, 480 pages, $39.95 The Wind in the Willows: An Annotated Edition by Kenneth Grahame,...

Pedantic Park

Alan Jacobs

Worlds Made of Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West by Anthony Grafton Harvard, 432 pages, $29.95 Alas, poor Casaubon! Your name, thanks to George Eliot, has become...

Blessed Are the Green of Heart

Alan Jacobs

Some years ago I was leading a summer study tour in Oxford, England, during which as a matter of course—we were from Wheaton College, after all—we paid a visit...

The Way, the Truth, and Philip Jenkins

Alan Jacobs

Woody Allen used to joke that he had been kicked out of college for cheating on an exam in his metaphysics class: He looked into the soul of the...

A Religion for Atheists

Alan Jacobs

Alain de Botton has been engaged for many years now in an intriguing project”to get people to think of philosophy not as an abstruse academic discipline but rather as...

Do-It-Yourself Tradition

Alan Jacobs

The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay Jossey-Bass, 224 pages, $23.95 Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices by Brian McLaren...

A Classic Case

Alan Jacobs

History Lesson: A Race Odyssey by Mary Lefkowitz Yale University Press, 208 pages, $25 In History Lesson Mary Lefkowitz tells a story that has three distinct themes. The story...

Reading, Writing, and Reformation

Alan Jacobs

Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation Opponents by James Simpson Harvard University, Press368 pages, $27.95 The past twenty years have brought major changes to university presses. Decreasing...