About halfway through his new book, Christopher Caldwell quotes John Stuart Mill on the relationship between diversity and democracy: “Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities.” This sentiment haunts The Age of Entitlement. Ostensibly about . . . . Continue Reading »
I read The Age of Entitlement in one sitting, unable to put down Christopher Caldwell’s riveting account of the last fifty years of American politics and culture. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the nation’s leaders embarked on a series of grand projects. A modern . . . . Continue Reading »
It would be dangerous to give the powerful gay lobby the weapons of anti-discrimination law. Continue Reading »
Birmingham has been known as the “City of Perpetual Promise,” but the promise is only perpetual because the city never quite lives up to it. Continue Reading »
Jackie Robinson’s accomplishments should rank as high as anyone’s in the pantheon of civil rights heroes. Continue Reading »
A new paper suggests young Americans are giving up on democracy. When we discard our traditions, we can fall for many things, including, apparently, authoritarianism. Continue Reading »
When I heard Hillary Clinton’s statement at the recent 2015 Women in the World Summit that “Deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” for the sake of giving women access to “reproductive health care and safe childbirth,” at first I was confused. She has spoken often about being a Christian and having a rich prayer life, and I have no reason to doubt that she has real religious commitments. I wondered how someone who attends church regularly, prays, and therefore presumably knows something about the value and the sanctity of religious belief could say something so hostile toward religion.Then I thought of Harvey Cox’s The Secular City. Something about her statement rang that bell. I have no idea if Secretary Clinton read Cox’s influential and popular 1965 book, or assuming she did, if the book influenced her thinking. Tracing the particular influences behind anyone’s conceptions is rarely a simple matter. What struck me, though, was the possibility that I have been missing something big: it is likely that many of those who denigrate religious beliefs aren’t drawing just on secular, anti-Christian ideologies, but on liberal Christian ideas about God. What I assume to be anti-religious animus might in some cases actually issue from a particular form of religiosity. Continue Reading »
NCAA President Mark Emmert has announced a new commission to study how its handling of fouls called in men’s basketball can help state governments determine the proper balance between religious freedom and civil rights: Continue Reading »
Long after Indiana's RFRA crisis is past, the changes in our political culture which it has revealed will continue to have consequences for religious conservatives. Continue Reading »
Supporters of same-sex marriage love to make analogies to the African American Civil Rights Movement. Analogies are rhetorical devices that require careful scrutiny. While I do not find the attempt to connect bans on gay marriage to miscegenation laws persuasive, nevertheless there is nothing inherently wrong in trying to find parallels between these two social movements. In that spirit, let me offer my own reflections on what we can learn by comparing them. Continue Reading »
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