Joseph Knippenberg

I just read President Obama’s annual Thanksgiving proclamation , which is more or less of a piece with its predecessors.  (You can read every single Presidential proclamation of thanks here .  I’ve read them all; some are genuinely impressive exercises in public theology, . . . . Continue Reading »

I attend a church where, when a creed is printed in the order of worship, the word “catholic” is accompanied by an asterisk.  Tonight, I saw that small-c catholicity in action.  We hosted a choral concert (“Majestic Choruses”), featuring the choirs of our church . . . . Continue Reading »

Many conservative pundits can only say the words “social justice” while sneering.  Fortunately, Ryan Anderson isn’t one of them.  Here he takes two prominent conservative public intellectuals—Peter Wehner and Arthur Brooks—to the woodshed for the . . . . Continue Reading »

I have watched with some trepidation the evolution (or is it devolution?) of the faith-based initiative in the Obama Administration.  The latest straw in the wind may be pretty close to the last one for me. Essentially , the Obama Administration has excluded the U.S. Conference of Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »

John Stuart Mill apparently once (at least once) referred to the Tories as the stupid party, a label some are also quick to apply to contemporary conservatives and Republicans here in the U.S.  What Mill meant, and what his self-conscious and unself-conscious followers mean is at least this: . . . . Continue Reading »

That was the name game .  Now we’re playing (and have been for quite some time) the blame game.  The Occupiers, with some encouragement from Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the White House, have been blaming the financial industry for their woes. There’s more than enough . . . . Continue Reading »

Michael Gerson thinks so: Bachmann’s candidacy represents a digression in the quality and seriousness of evangelical political engagement. It is difficult to imagine Mike Huckabee boasting of his indifference to the health and welfare of children, whatever their background. Even Pat Robertson, . . . . Continue Reading »

Our friend Peter Lawler offers a brief appreciation of Pierre Manent here .  It’s hard to tell where Lawler ends and Manent begins, but here’s a snippet: For Manent, who is among one of the most endangered of species, a French Catholic intellectual, the modern nation, at its best, . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s hard not (at least) to be disappointed with Barack Obama or to regard him as hypocritical.  Consider, for example this New York Times article about the President’s campaign bundlers—technically, they’re not lobbyists, but you almost have to parse words in a . . . . Continue Reading »

Ben Domenech , whose morning email I find invaluable, links to this article , entitled “Are Twentysomethings Expecting Too Much?”  Written by and for young high achievers in Washington, D.C., the article poses the question: They were raised to believe they could do anything, and . . . . Continue Reading »