Theodore Dreiser is ranked among our great authors; he was a syllabus mainstay for as polished a master as Saul Bellow. Yet he is neither among the great English-language prose stylists nor a writer of nuanced or profound moral vision. His idea of human life was crudely mechanical and deterministic. . . . . Continue Reading »
Epictetus was the sort of figure that only the Roman Empire could have produced. He was born in the Phrygian hills of Anatolia in the middle of the first century. Enslaved and brought to the capital, he served in the household of the freedman Epaphroditos. Epaphroditos, in turn, was in the direct . . . . Continue Reading »
On September 11, 2017, between midnight and dawn, a statue of Fr. Junípero Serra—whom generations of California schoolchildren called “the Father of California”—was beheaded at Mission Santa Barbara. Reading about the defiled statue in the paper, I immediately question my father, my . . . . Continue Reading »
My generation tends to think of itself as the first generation to be moral, tolerant, decent, and good. We abhor racism, sexism, nationalism, and homophobia, crimes we set at the center of past societies—all of them. We have avoided the bloody vices of slavery, torture, pillaging, religious . . . . Continue Reading »
Trying to really believe in Communism now would be like trying to believe in Moloch or Anubis. The willingness to give up everything, which animated previous generations of revolutionaries, has vanished. Continue Reading »
I live in Berkeley, one of the most religious cities in America. Its churches are being converted into mosques and Buddhist temples, but its one true faith endures. A popular yard sign states its creed: “In This House, We Believe: Black Lives Matter, Women’s Rights are Human Rights, No . . . . Continue Reading »
The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age by thomas howardoxford, 312 pages, $45 John Henry Newman aside, Ignaz von Döllinger (1799–1890) was the greatest Catholic theologian of the nineteenth century. He came of age amid a golden . . . . Continue Reading »
He was not a refugee, not an immigrant, not a displaced person. Or, rather: yes and no. When he and I became close friends, he once said to me: “Sometimes Americans ask, ‘When did you come to this country?’ I did not come to America; I went there.” And if he was asked . . . . Continue Reading »
On a “what if” radio program sixty years ago, I heard the newly inaugurated President Lincoln persuade Robert E. Lee that his loyalty to the United States Army should outweigh his allegiance to the state of Virginia. In short order, Lee quells the rebellion; in 1868 he is elected to succeed . . . . Continue Reading »
It all did start with the ninety-five theses, in a sense. Luther probably did not actually nail them to the church door—at least no one at the time tells us so. And if he did, it was not in anger or protest against the church. He was trying to arrange an academic discussion, and evidently . . . . Continue Reading »
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