Joe Carter

Dressing up to go to church has long been out of fashion in many denominations. Most Sunday services at church now resemble like casual Fridays at the office. The trend in dressing down will likely continue, but one congregation in Virginia may be taking the “come as you are” ethic just a . . . . Continue Reading »

Lauren Weiner has some criticisms and recommendations for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: The most recent crop of inductees is interesting. Among the choices for 2009 were Robert Gates, Colin Powell, appellate judge Harvie Wilkinson, historians James McPherson and Robert Caro, Emmylou . . . . Continue Reading »

Since Mary Rose pointed out some great photos of the current blizzard, I thought I’d inform the readers who aren’t on the East Coast that New York has two feet of snow. (Via: The Worley Gig ) . . . . Continue Reading »

Kelly Kulick, a 33-year-old professional bowler, had already won the Professional Bowler’s Association Women’s World Championship and was looking for a new challenge.  Since a new PBA rule allowed her to qualify for the men’s tournaments she signed up for the Tournament of . . . . Continue Reading »

A new survey of 2,508 Americans conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute asked 39 questions intended to evaluate the impact of a college education on people’s beliefs. The results are as discouraging as they are predictable: Conventional wisdom holds that there is a strong connection . . . . Continue Reading »

[Note: Every Friday on First Thoughts we host a discussion about some aspect of pop culture. Today’s theme is music from the 1980s. Have a suggestion for a topic? Send them to me at jcarter@firstthings.com ] I hail from Generation X while my sixteen-year-old daughter is a member of Generation . . . . Continue Reading »

Frantz Schmidt was a family man, a respected city official, and a pious Christian. He was also a consumate professional who worked in an occupation that required that he flog, maim, hang, behead, drown, and bury alive various criminals: June 5, 1573. “Leonardt Russ of Ceyern, a thief. Executed . . . . Continue Reading »

A new report delivered to the Obama administration claims that American foreign policy is hindered by its secularism and needs to factor religious issues into its dealings with other countries: American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and “uncompromising Western . . . . Continue Reading »

Joseph Bottum on anti-Catholicism in French thought : There remains to this day a snarl in French conservative thought, where all sorts of threads are knotted together: nationalists tangled up with anti-Semites, monarchists, anti-Dreyfusards, Lefebverists, and those aging colonialists who long to . . . . Continue Reading »

At the Guardian , Toby Lichtig reveals how he is held hostage by the books he begins : Are you a non-finisher? A literary tease who picks up books on street corners and then discards them on page 45 without so much as a follow-up text? Are your shelves a sea of protruding bookmarks? Alan . . . . Continue Reading »