Various

Culture I recently read Jonathan Price’s “Culture by Subtraction” (February) and thoroughly enjoyed it—not least because it grants the rather respectable name of “cultural habit” to what has so far been called my countrymen’s “arrogance”! When reading, I could not help wondering . . . . Continue Reading »

CATHOLICISMSA demographic question for Ross Douthat regarding his “A Crisis of Conservative Catholicism” (January): If liberal Catholicism is to be alive in twenty years, where will its members come from? Who will be not just self-identifying to pollsters but running its schools and its . . . . Continue Reading »

Saint Aldhelm’s Riddlestranslated by a. m. justertoronto, 173 pages, $29.95 The riddle of Samson’s strength, the riddle of the eagle’s way with the sky and the ship’s way with the sea, the riddles in royal dreams of Pharaoh or ­Nebuchadnezzar, the riddle of things hidden since the world . . . . Continue Reading »

dark powersR. R. Reno’s “The Nazi Taboo” section in his “Public Square” (December) immediately piqued my interest, but I am still not sure where the thesis was headed. Is the sudden emergence of ISIS an example of our vulnerability to an “upsurge in primitive urges?” Certainly it has . . . . Continue Reading »

TeachersIn his “Re-Educate for America” (November), Malcolm Rivers identifies correctly the cultural hegemony that undergirds the educational establishment (and the leadership class) in America. A decade ago, as a New York City Teaching Fellow (a program in lockstep with Teach for America), I . . . . Continue Reading »

We asked some of our writers to contribute a paragraph about the most memorable books they read this year.Michael LewisThere is a special chagrin when we belatedly discover the greatness of some author we have been perversely avoiding for decades—in my case, Dostoevsky and Jane Austen. But there . . . . Continue Reading »

Is a Thomism friendly to the gay lifestyle the wave of the future? Is it the next phase in a scholarly, sophisticated kind of theology? Such is the impression given by the medieval scholar Adriano Oliva in his new book Amours, published in French and Italian. Continue Reading »

africaJohn Azumah, author of “Through African Eyes” (October), has been my colleague and friend at Columbia Theological Seminary since he arrived here in 2011. We have agreed on some matters, disagreed on others, and maintained a clear and sincere sense of collegiality regardless of our . . . . Continue Reading »

MFA OR NOT?When I met Randy Boyagoda, I told him that I was pursuing an MFA in fiction and he genially disapproved: “No! Why?” I forget what I answered. But most MFAs, when surveyed, will say, “I want time to write.” Any MFA program worth getting into will give you a reasonable stipend for . . . . Continue Reading »

Faith, Fiction and Force in Medieval Baptismal Debates by marcia colish cua, 384 pages, $69.95 B aptism seems so simple: water and the formula “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” But like so many religious practices, it can be celebrated in different ways, with . . . . Continue Reading »