What would you guess is the most reproduced work of art in the world? A work of Islamic art? The Mona Lisa ? Monet’s Water Lillies (which can be found in the dorm room of every college-aged female in America)? The answer is likely to surprise you—unless you’re British It’s an . . . . Continue Reading »
My home state of Mississippi breeds storytellers like Washington DC breeds scoundrels. We lost a giant yesterday, Barry Hannah (1942 - 2010). I met him a few times, once when I lived next door to his son and Barry rang my door bell by mistake (our apartments were . . . . Continue Reading »
Thanks to suicide tourism and the Debbie Purdy case, the office of the public prosecutor for England and Wales has published final guidelines telling would be suicide assisters when they are more or less likely to face prosecution. The document strongly denies that it is decriminalizing . . . . Continue Reading »
David Klinghoffer, the “Kingdom of Priests” blogger at Beliefnet, was telling me the other day about the Orthodox shul in Seattle at which he davens. Very few members of the synagogue (the rabbi excepted) were raised in Orthodox homes. Almost all are Jews who embraced Orthodoxy as . . . . Continue Reading »
The following was published in the 9 March 2009 issue of Christian Courier as part of my “Principalities & Powers” column:In our postchristian society, appeals to human rights have become the functional equivalent of the biblical prophets’ “thus saith the Lord.” . . . . Continue Reading »
On September 12, 1960, Senator and Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy went to Houston to deliver a speech on religious toleranc e before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers. The speech was one of the most deleterious and misguided in modern . . . . Continue Reading »
Niall Ferguson provides a simple, clear, and insightful portrayal of the (potential) rise and fall of the American empire in his article Complexity and Collapse, Empires on the Edge of Chaos, from the March/April 2010 edition of Foreign Affairs. The thread of his analysis follows a thread provided . . . . Continue Reading »
From the abstract of Pinkovskiy and Sala?i?Martin’s working paper ” African Poverty is Falling . . . Much Faster than You Think! ” (PDF): The conventional wisdom that Africa is not reducing poverty is wrong. Using the methodology of Pinkovskiy and Sala?i?Martin (2009), we estimate . . . . Continue Reading »
The most oft broken vow by Christians, says theologian Carl Trueman , isn’t marital vows to remain faithful, ministerial vows to preach the gospel, or baptismal vows to raise children in the fear and nurture of the Lord: No. The most broken vow is almost certainly that by which church . . . . Continue Reading »
I have always thought that every academic–or wannabe, like me–ought have one or two hypotheses that are held very loosely, are somewhat defensible but impossible to prove, and just fringe enough to make academic parties interesting. One such hypothesis that I have occasionally advanced is that . . . . Continue Reading »
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