In a recent book assessing the state of evangelical scholarship, Mark Noll refers to a boomlet in evangelical art history [that] rests squarely on the work of the Dutch Reformed scholar Hans Rookmaaker. Had Noll seen Daniel Siedells book God in the Gallery , he might have thought . . . . Continue Reading »
The November issue of First Things is now hot off the griddle¯a rich, tasty new issue, with major essays from the likes of Richard John Neuhaus, Gilbert Meilaender, and Stephen Barr. Book reviews, poems, letters, and Opinions¯to say nothing of another flavorful installment of the The . . . . Continue Reading »
Readers will no doubt remember the recent heated exchange in the pages of First Things . Alyssa Lyra Pitstick summarized her analysis of Balthasars provocative and dramatic (and by her reading unorthodox) vision of the depths of the paschal mystery. Balthasar scholar Edward Oakes, S.J., rose . . . . Continue Reading »
The first-time visitor to Rome is drawn inexorably to St. Peters basilica, the most famous church in the world, at the heart of Vatican City. Built above what is believed to be the actual bones of the apostle Peter, this church has been the home of the popes since the Middle Ages. Catholics . . . . Continue Reading »
The Tuesday debate between Senators McCain and Obama was, it must be admitted, something of a bore. If the outcome is called a draw, it is hard to resist the conclusion that it was a win for Obama. It seems that all he has to do for the next few weeks is to keep his cool and not frighten the . . . . Continue Reading »
The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect, and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, . . . . Continue Reading »
On August 23 of this year, armed men stormed a Hindu school in the Kandhamal district in Orissa, a remote and destitute state in eastern India, and killed the Hindu leader Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his followers. (Saraswati had belonged to a radical Hindu association opposed to the . . . . Continue Reading »
Gregory and Martine Millman did not set out to homeschool their children, at least not consciously. When they became parents in the mid-1980s, their plan to was to lead a normal yuppie life, upwardly mobile, working their way into a neighborhood with good schools which of course their . . . . Continue Reading »
This semester Im teaching a really fun course: Foundations of the Christian Intellectual Tradition. Last week we began a two-week-long segment on Greek tragedy.What makes a tragedy tragic? I asked. I have a group of really sharp freshman, and they opined about this or that movie, . . . . Continue Reading »
The argument of these last several Friday postings is that the no-establishment provision of the first freedom of the First Amendment is entirely in the service of the free exercise provision. I should note, at least in passing, that those devoted to the “original meaning” of the First . . . . Continue Reading »