In a hollow just north of Bennington, Vermont, near the New York state line, nineteen monks at the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration live and die in seclusion. It’s the only Carthusian site in North America, a remote spot in the shadow of Mt. Equinox, highest peak in the Taconic Range. In 2005 . . . . Continue Reading »
Controversy surrounds the disinvitation of Fr. Calvin Robinson from the closing panel of the Mere Anglicanism conference held in Charleston, South Carolina, in January. Asked to lecture on the topic “Critical Theories Are Antithetical to the Gospel,” Robinson argued during the main session that . . . . Continue Reading »
The development of doctrine is a notion more frequently invoked than understood. When, as is too often done, a novelty or even a reversal of traditional Christian teaching is proposed as a “development,” the term is being abused. Indeed, it is being deployed to denote precisely the opposite of . . . . Continue Reading »
In December 2023, Michael Cassidy, a Navy veteran and devout Christian, encountered an obscene statue of Baphomet erected by the Satanic Temple inside the Iowa Statehouse. He tore it down. For this act of what he described as spontaneous “Christian civil disobedience,” he was quickly charged . . . . Continue Reading »
My friend J, a computer programmer, once convinced his former roommate—also a programmer—to watch the Japanese art film Asako I & II, about a woman who falls in love with two identical-looking but different men. J’s roommate sat patiently through this intricate, two-hour . . . . Continue Reading »
In the literature of the First World War, full of the horrors of trench warfare that ravaged a generation even for the victorious Allies, a single heroic leader stands apart from the mass-murdering generals and clueless politicians who were responsible for the slaughter. Whereas their corroded names . . . . Continue Reading »
Disappearance is usually felt as something bad. When things disappear, we sense the pull of death, the call of the dust, the loss of the palpable good. I have recently been moving house after many years in one place, with all its accumulations. Things, often intimate things, are left behind, given . . . . Continue Reading »
For at least a generation, the phrase “religious right” has evoked a style of politics marked by hortatory rhetoric, foreign-policy interventionism, and support for the free movement of people and goods. This version of Christian politics reached its zenith during the George W. Bush . . . . Continue Reading »
Russians take positions to the extreme. As a result, Russian intellectual history shows us where ideas may lead—and in Russia’s case, really did. The English prided themselves on moderation and suspicion of radical abstractions, but Russians regarded anything short of ultimate positions as . . . . Continue Reading »
It was surreal. President Biden began his State of the Union speech by invoking the Nazi threat. More than eighty years ago, Biden reminded us, Franklin Roosevelt rallied the nation, as “Hitler was on the march,” and “freedom and democracy were under assault.” Today, the president warned, . . . . Continue Reading »
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