Gilbert Meilaender

Several years ago, James Mumford brought to my attention a passage from an essay by George Orwell. I was struck by it then and am struck by it still. The essay is titled simply, “A Hanging.” Orwell had served in a British police force in Burma at a time when Britain was still a colonial power. . . . . Continue Reading »

Perhaps only a few potential readers are interested enough in an essay titled “The Continuing Relevance of the Donatist Controversy” to begin reading it immediately (or ever). Others may be pleased to learn that only gradually will we make our way to thinking about the controversy that troubled . . . . Continue Reading »

No, not the masks you assume I have in mind, the masks that have become such a bone of contention in our society. The masks I have in mind are the kind referred to by C. S. Lewis in a passage from his autobiography, Surprised by Joy. Discussing his experience as a soldier in the Great War, he . . . . Continue Reading »

Heaven,” Jonathan Edwards says in the fifteenth and last of his Charity Sermons, “is a World of Love.” In saying this, however, he did not seem to have in mind what many of us might -immediately hope for or suppose. To be sure, in one of his Miscellanies, asking himself “whether the . . . . Continue Reading »

The subtitle of this book characterizes it as a “guide” to The Abolition of Man. Potential readers might, therefore, ask themselves: What does Michael Ward mean in calling his book a “guide”? And why should a guide be needed for a book that (with rather large print) runs to only a . . . . Continue Reading »

In 1975 Paul Ramsey published a little book titled The Ethics of Fetal Research. In it he was at pains to distinguish experimental use of the dead fetus or of cadaver fetal tissue from research on the still living fetus (whether newly aborted or still in the womb but intended for abortion). . . . . Continue Reading »

The flag has become not a symbol of unity but a battleground. Continue Reading »

Here are some of my thoughts from quarantine. Continue Reading »

Pondering the endless glut of books on the virtues of nationalism and the failures of political liberalism, I sat up late the other night, reading around (yet again) in Augustine’s City of God before dozing off in my chair. Waking suddenly—or, at least, half-awake—my mind was . . . . Continue Reading »

Not too many years ago, I knew a little boy who was prone to temper tantrums that included yelling, kicking, and hitting. He wasn’t entirely to blame for this, having had a rough start in life. Nevertheless, that sort of behavior couldn’t just be excused, and, of course, if uncorrected it would . . . . Continue Reading »