I grew up with public school prayer and my fourth grade tyrant, Mrs. Earing, not only made us pray daily but also made us sing Faith of Our Fathers every Friday morning (though we never included the original verse praising the Virgin). A choir we were not. I really dislike that hymn. Best I can . . . . Continue Reading »
Martha Nussbaum, one of America’s leading public intellectuals, has devoted considerable attention in the last few years to the role that disgust and shame play in our individual and collective lives, particularly in the law.The book that got it all started was Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, . . . . Continue Reading »
“The popular myth of convivencia —the idyllic coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Spain from the Muslim invasion of a.d. 711 to the expulsions of 1492—appeals to the multicultural temper of the times,” writes artist and critic Maureen . . . . Continue Reading »
Some people will do anything for fame—even kill themselves in slow motion. A New Jersey woman is trying to get to the 1000 pound mark to set a world’s record. From the story:Donna Simpson, 42, from New Jersey weighs more than 42 stone and aims to reach 1,000 pounds, or 71st. The . . . . Continue Reading »
A conversation tonight reminded me of a scene I saw in South Dakota a few years ago: A pair of German tourists in the Black Hills, attempting to separate a mother buffalo from her new spring calf, so they could pose their children with the calf for a photograph. The scene is still vivid in my . . . . Continue Reading »
I was planning to followup my critique of Kant with a parallel commentary on utilitarianism, but was waylaid by picking up some unread material sitting in my bookcase: an anthology of Aquinas’ thought On Law, Morality, and Politics, Hackett Press, Second Edition. (I’ll quote from . . . . Continue Reading »
In the new biography American Cicero , Bradley J. Birzer examines the life of an American founding father he calls “an exemplar of Catholic and Republican virtue.” (And, in the title of the first chapter, a “liberally-educated bastard.”) Birzer, who holds the Russell Kirk chair . . . . Continue Reading »
I thought Evangel readers would appreciate knowing about my Christianity Today interview with James Davison Hunter, Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and author of To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern . . . . Continue Reading »
A few years ago, Joseph Bottum lamented the loss of the swallows at Mission San Juan Capistrano , comparing the loss of the swallows to the loss of a vibrant—if quirky—Catholic Culture: There’s a figure in all this—a metaphor, perhaps, or a synecdoche—for the condition of . . . . Continue Reading »
The front page of today’s Wall Street Journal features a photograph of a sergeant handing a wounded comrade a cigarette while reading Psalm 91 to him. It’s a classic picture, in fact a wonderful picture. Here is the psalm this young man asked to hear, in the King James Version: He that . . . . Continue Reading »
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