My friend Manolo the Shoebloggerone of the great Internet prose stylists of our time has an idea : It is Monday, and coming back from the Pilates this morning you ran into your old frenemy, Jenny, who described for you at great and exhausting length her new workout regime: the form of . . . . Continue Reading »
We need to stop smuggling “comprehensive doctrines” into our public discourse, because that deceptive refusal to admit metaphysics distorts and corrupts it, writes senior editor R. R. Reno in Metaphysics and the Common Good , today’s “On the Square” article. In . . . . Continue Reading »
Unsubstantiated rumour has it that a group of atheists and agnostics wants to remove the motto IN GOD WE TRUST from American coins and replace it with CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE . . . . Continue Reading »
On the recommendation of David Bentley Hart , I read Richard Dawkinss The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution . Like Hart, I too enjoyed the book and was relieved that Dawkins kept his belligerence against religion mostly in check. (Operative word: mostly .) One passage, . . . . Continue Reading »
Over at Times and Seasons, a blog mostly for Mormons, where I am guest, I have posted some thoughts on a “third-order” question that lies behind or underneath the most vital (I think) contemporary political issues. Come on over and join the fray, if you dare. . . . . Continue Reading »
Today I’m going to reflect on a passage from Willa Cather’s achingly beautiful novel, O Pioneers! (1913), a title inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem. The Library of America offers a short description of the book in case you’re not familiar with it:O Pioneers! is the story of a . . . . Continue Reading »
As expected, the parole board in Utah has unanimously rejected Ronnie Lee Gardner’s appeal for commutation of his death sentence. I’ve written on Gardner this week , part of my ongoing attempt to build a political-theory argument against the barbaric and unnecessary punishment. We live . . . . Continue Reading »
Apparently some of the richest people in Silicon Valley have caught the transhumanism bug—Google types, no less. An extensive article in Sunday’s New York Times’ business section tells the story. From. “Merely Human? That’s So Yesterday:”ON a Tuesday evening this spring, Sergey Brin, the . . . . Continue Reading »
Particularly for pastors: a friend who pastors a small Evangelical church nearby writes in response to Memorial Gratitude , my reflection on the difficulty some of us have in feeling the kind of gratitude that soldiers deserve: I tried something in church on the Sunday before Memorial . . . . Continue Reading »
The discussion of Joseph Bottum’s Blood for Blood , today’s “On the Square” article, has started up. Readers who have not yet read his provocative criticism of the death penalty, in which he takes a very different (and to me more compelling) position than the usual . . . . Continue Reading »