There are two types of evangelicals in America: those who naively embrace whatever trendy items happen to be hot sellers at “Christian” bookstores”WWJD? bracelets, Testamints, prayer of Jabez scented candles”and those who shun such kitsch. I am solidly of the second type. Like a good Pharisee, I thank God every day that I’m not like those people… . Continue Reading »
There was considerable just war argument before, during, and after the Iraq War. Some of it was not terribly insightful, but, in the main, the debate demonstrated that the principles of the classic just war tradition, if not the tradition’s intellectual architecture, were still in place in American public life… . Continue Reading »
In last week’s episode of the hit TV series Glee, the acerbic cheerleading instructor Sue Sylvester revealed to her Down Syndrome-afflicted sister that she stopped believing in God because of the way she, the sister, had been treated by people who saw her as “less than perfect.” “You were perfect in my eyes,” Sylvester said . . . . Continue Reading »
Sandro Magister, the authoritative Vatican watcher at La Repubblica, last week noted one of the most significant and under-reported facts about Christian life in the Middle East: Christian numbers are growing in only one country in the region, namely the State of Israel. Elsewhere, Muslim hostility is smothering Christian life… . Continue Reading »
Curious to see what’s out there, since we don’t watch television at home, while visiting friends recently I flipped through the channels after the children were in bed, and came across some sort of roast, I think on VH1. A woman who turned out to be the host was insulting several people sitting nearby … Continue Reading »
You’ve likely heard the field of economics referred to as “the dismal science.” And if you took a course in macroeconomics you probably recognize that the appellation was given by the Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle. But what few people realize is that Carlyle coined the term in an 1849 magazine article … Continue Reading »
Three weeks have passed since the Pope’s visit to Great Britain, and memories of it still fill my mind, because it was a triumph few had expected. Of all the remarkable things I saw, while blogging about it for First Things, nothing more surprised me than this … Continue Reading »
Two postcard portraits of the recently-beatified John Henry Newman have graced my office for years. One is a miniature painted by Sir William Charles Ross in 1845, the year of Newman’s reception into the Catholic Church. The second, by Emmeline Dean, gives us the aged cardinal, a year before his death in 1890, in cardinalatial house cassock and walking stick… . Continue Reading »
Michael Novak and his work during the past thirty-five years have been abundantly feted. Celebrants have expounded on his brilliance, his prolificacy, and his influence. But brilliance and industriousness, although highly important virtues, are not nearly as rare as the total Novak phenomenon… . Continue Reading »
In the weeks leading up to the beatification of John Henry Newman, more than one writer asked whether the Anglican convert might be embraced by some, particularly by progressives, as “the patron saint of dissenters.” Newman’s willingness to launch his spacious intellect into debate within the church … Continue Reading »
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