A Catholic Tribute to Lord Sacks

by Sohrab Ahmari

Despite rejecting almost in toto the Church’s account of faith and reason, Sacks nevertheless credited it for the fundamental humaneness of Western civilization. Continue Reading »

9 Dec 2020

Loving to Know

by N. T. Wright

In many spheres, the question not just of what we know but of how we know is urgent and vital. I have tried to develop the notion of love as the ultimate form of knowledge and to explore its wider relevance. My history with this question begins in the 1980s, when I was growing concerned by profound . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Feb 2020

Steven Pinker's Muscular Secularism

by Richard Rex

Enlightenment Now:  The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by steven pinker  viking, 576 pages, $35 Steven Pinker, as his blurb reminds us, has been reckoned by Time magazine among the “hundred most influential people in the world today.” In Enlightenment Now he devotes . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 2018

The Atheist’s Imagination

by Mark Bauerlein

According to Steven Pinker, God must be either a do-gooder or a do-nothing—there is no room in his worldview for divine, inscrutable ways. Continue Reading »

27 Feb 2018

Brexit and Enlightenment Man

by Dan Hitchens

The terror and dismay of Remainers have helped to demonstrate the non-existence of Enlightenment Man, the thinker who stands only on logic and waves away every distraction. Continue Reading »

19 Feb 2018

Liturgy of Liberalism

by Adrian Vermeule

The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societiesby ryszard legutko encounter, 200 pages, $23.99 In The Old Regime and the Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville described the French Revolution as a religious movement: The ideal the French Revolution set before it was not merely a change . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jan 2017

Escape from Enlightenment

by Eve Tushnet

Holy Hell confirms some stereotypes of cults and challenges others. The Buddhafield offered much that our churches don’t offer but should; it offered much that they do offer and shouldn't. Continue Reading »

26 Sep 2016

Enlightenment Bible, Church Bible

by Peter J. Leithart

The following is taken from a paper that was delivered at a conference sponsored by the Center for Pastor Theologians on November 3.In his 2005 book, The Enlightenment Bible, Jonathan Sheehan describes changes in the Bible’s role in Germany and England between the late seventeenth and . . . . Continue Reading »

6 Nov 2015

Thanking the Puritans on Thanksgiving

by Peter Lawler

There’s little less fashionable today than praising the Puritans, especially for their egalitarian political idealism, their promotion of genuinely humane and liberating learning, and their capacity for enjoyment and human happiness. Praising the Puritans is especially difficult for us because . . . . Continue Reading »

24 Nov 2010

Ivan Karamazov's Mistake

by Ralph C. Wood

It is has become commonplace to regard Ivan Karamazov’s “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor” as a prescient parable glorifying human freedom and defending it against the kind of totalitarian threats it would face in the twentieth century. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s angry atheist delivers an uncanny . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2002