Joe Carter

Since the financial crisis began in the fall of 2008, bankers have become our new favorite villains. But John Terrill, director for the Center for Integrity in Business at Seattle Pacific University, makes the case that investment bankers can be doing the Lord’s work : Outrage at . . . . Continue Reading »

Is the most beautiful phrase in English . . . cellar door ? The claim that cellar door is beautiful to the ear — in opposition to its prosaic meaning — has been made by and attributed to a wide variety of writers over the years . . . . The fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien, . . . . Continue Reading »

First Things contributing writer Mary Eberstadt has released a new book : A wickedly witty satire, The Loser Letter s chronicles the conversion of a young adult Christian to atheism. With modern humor rivaling that of the media lampooning Onion, found on college campuses all over America, A. F. . . . . Continue Reading »

On his radio program, Fox News’ Glenn Beck encouraged listeners to leave their church if it proclaims a concern for social justice: I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your . . . . Continue Reading »

A poll for the BBC World Service suggests that almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental human right . . . . . Continue Reading »

Makoto Fujimura—an artist I’ve mentioned before —makes an astute point that “art is both in the execution and in the revelation of the extraordinary”: I’ve heard many people say of contemporary art: “my kids can do that.” I encourage them, then to try it . . . . Continue Reading »

Popular Science , which started as a text-only newsletter in 1872, has made its entire 137-year archive available for free browsing . It’s an invaluable resource, especially for those of us interested in retrofuturism (depictions of the future produced in the past). From the 1920 to the . . . . Continue Reading »

Justin E. H. Smith on words that can mean either one thing or its opposite: Antonyms, of course, are pairs of words that have meanings opposite to each other. Autoantonyms, in turn, are single words that themselves can mean either one thing or its opposite. This can happen either by convergence . . . . Continue Reading »

Are you morally consistent? Philosophy Experiments has put together an interactive version of the Trolley Problem that will put that question to the test. . . . . Continue Reading »

Thomas Hibbs considers this year’s Best Picture nominees : Perhaps in the hope of expanding interest in its fatuous and self-indulgent awards ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expanded its list of nominees for Best Picture from five to ten. This year’s list . . . . Continue Reading »