R. R. Reno

I’m often asked by students, “Where’s a good place to study theology?” It’s not an easy question to answer. Lots of places have strengths¯and they also have weaknesses. More importantly, the most appropriate school has a lot to do with the student. Interests, . . . . Continue Reading »

Richard John Neuhaus never seemed to lack for pithy, authoritative formulations. Neuhaus’ Law provides an obvious example: Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed. It’s memorable, quotable, and it rings true. His saying it does not make it so, but his way of . . . . Continue Reading »

A nice treat came in the mail a couple of days ago: David Hart’s new book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale Press). I’m a complete sucker for the great avalanches of Hart’s long, elegant Ciceronian sentences. And his take-no-prisoners . . . . Continue Reading »

Massive concrete buildings, post-war housing projects, highways torn through old neighborhoods¯so much of the ugliness we take for granted in our cities testifies to influence of Le Corbusier. Born in 1887 as Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, the thin, intense young man from a provincial Swiss . . . . Continue Reading »

Fifty years. It seems like a long time. But if you pick up Jacques Barzun’s searching analysis of modern education, The House of Intellect , the half century melts away. Published in 1959, this piquant critique of post-War American attitudes toward the life of the mind remains . . . . Continue Reading »

Biblical scholars can be wonderfully predictable. John W. Martens, a biblical scholar at the University of St. Thomas, is not happy with my observations last week about our need for an approach to the Bible more closely coordinated with Church teaching¯and a theology more engaged in biblical . . . . Continue Reading »

The Bible contains a verse that scholars like to quote. It is from the book of Ecclesiastes: “Of making many books there is no end, and much study is weariness of the flesh” (12:12). In context it serves as a warning against the vain illusion that we can study our way to the Kingdom of God. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Barack Obama’s announcement of restrictions on executive pay gets it just right. Last week the White House issued regulations limiting compensation for the top brass of companies being bailed out to $500,000 per year, along with a variety of warnings about the luxury goodies that cronies on . . . . Continue Reading »

Over the years, Anthony Daniels, a medical doctor who worked for many years in an English slum hospital attached to nearby prison, has developed quite a body of cultural criticism under the pseudonym Theodore Dalrymple. Not with a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline offers a fine . . . . Continue Reading »

The election is over and the inauguration is upon us. There has been and will be a great deal of talk about the historic significance of Barack Obama”our first black president. The symbolism is powerful. America may be flawed, it may be arrogant in its power and sated with its wealth, but it . . . . Continue Reading »