The wolves behind the fence at the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York, were lithe and rangy. They weren’t big. They didn’t slaver. They trotted up and down as our human guide told us charming tales of wolf-ambassadors, wild creatures who trusted their handlers enough to come out . . . . Continue Reading »
Consistency is a basic principle of justice, and one important form of criticism is the exposure of hypocrisy. There are many occasions for exposing hypocrisy these days. In the aftermath of the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Florida home, we can point to Hillary Clinton’s private server. Asked to . . . . Continue Reading »
At the confluence of the Delawareand the Little Delaware I fishedwithout result. I cast my lure timeafter time into thetumult. My friend threw flies. Ithrew a Phoebe, untilevening called a halt. We talked about Nothing:Zen and Gorgias.The darkness dwelt. The bats fluttered. Thestars poked thru a . . . . Continue Reading »
Russell A. Berman’s essay (“State of Emergency,” June/July) about our nation’s instability in various areas of public life is an insightful and valuable analysis of the fraying of the social bonds that hold together our multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation. There is one sentence, however, that . . . . Continue Reading »
America’s foreign policy needs to reorient. In my book The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, I lay out what this approach should be. It is a strategy designed to prevent any power from dominating one of the world’s critical regions, especially its most . . . . Continue Reading »
The Middle East was ahead of its time—and certainly ahead of the West—on at least one thing: existential debates over culture, identity, and religion. During the heady, sometimes frightening days of the Arab Spring, the region was struggling over some of the same questions Americans are . . . . Continue Reading »
July’s was probably the last recognizable assembly of the Lambeth Conference we shall see in this generation (and perhaps the next). No longer will “all” the bishops of the Anglican Communion gather, but only some, and only from some places. No longer will the deliberation of the Communion’s . . . . Continue Reading »
At a theology conference some months ago, I mentioned to a friend that, although I think Karl Barth’s doctrine of the Word of God is one of modern theology’s great triumphs, academic “Barthianism” seemed to me a dead end. My friend walked me over to an eminent Barth scholar, who promptly . . . . Continue Reading »
The decision not to have a third child,made so soon after the birth of our second,launched us out into a dark abyss. We were two hostages surprised by sudden liberty,two divers strangling on twisted air lines;the death awaiting us was not our own. From that imagined loss appeared a small ghostwho . . . . Continue Reading »