For many of today’s students, the ideas of Adorno, Foucault, Barthes, and the rest are practically indigestible; the long hours required to understand these thinkers are drudgery. But for a brief period in the twentieth century, the act of reading them was downright religious, the air in the . . . . Continue Reading »
Going to a concert, like going to church or a nice restaurant or traveling on a plane or an overnight train, once meant dressing up and looking your best. We had been taught that dressing up showed respect—and classical music evoked special respect. This had little to do with how much one . . . . Continue Reading »
From the opening declaration that “biblical interpretation is not a historical discipline,” it is clear that Hans Boersma is addressing scholars committed to viewing the Bible as Scripture. Many biblical scholars do not share this commitment, and many who do were not trained in graduate school . . . . Continue Reading »
A man does tireof beingcold. He nears the fire.But beingtold, he lets expirethe BeingBold. —Matthew T. . . . . Continue Reading »
H. L. Mencken famously defined Puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Puritans, and Calvinists more generally, have a reputation for harboring an ungenerous suspicion of even the most innocent delights as sinfulness in disguise. Though this reputation is not . . . . Continue Reading »
Union and Absolution Mark Bauerlein, in his insightful piece “A Less Perfect Union” (January), states that the “Southern generals became idols after the war, and rightly so.” Lee and Jackson were far superior to the Union generals, especially in the first years of the war. His comments, . . . . Continue Reading »
Whatever Fred Moten is up to, it must be brilliant. Moten, a professor of performance studies at NYU, was awarded a MacArthur grant in 2020, a Guggenheim fellowship in 2016, and numerous awards for his poetry. He holds degrees in English from two of the highest-rated English departments in the . . . . Continue Reading »
Steubenville, Ohio, home to Franciscan University, is a small city on the banks of the Ohio River linking the Buckeye State with Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Like much of the Rust Belt, Steubenville has seen better days. But coinciding with economic downturn has been a spiritual renewal that . . . . Continue Reading »
René Guénon was one of the twentieth century’s most important traditionalist thinkers, as well as one of its strangest intellectual figures. In more than two dozen books, he claimed to reveal the hidden principles on which civilizations had rested since the dawn of humanity. His disclosure was . . . . Continue Reading »
III. Conversion God, imagine you(O Majesty!)emerging fromobscurityat thatsmall feast— At Cana,a wonder:clarity uncloudstheir heartswhen the best winegushesfrom the water jars. For thatI thank you,my Dear.And, Love,I’m praying:please pour over meyour charity;douse mein the delightof . . . . Continue Reading »
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