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Cohabiting couples and marriage

Isn’t it funny how "experts" eventually discover what those with a modicum of common sense have known all along? The latest example of experts stating the obvious, having expended much time and money "proving" it, emerged from research published in the journal Demography . . . . Continue Reading »

Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Spain

The recent visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Spain exposed the schizophrenic psyche of the Spanish nation. While more than a million faithful Spaniards, including King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, attended the pope’s valedictory Mass in Valencia, the country’s prime minister, Jose Luis . . . . Continue Reading »

St. John of the Cross

Allow me to pick up a thread I began to weave in our last conversation . My experience is that believers and unbelievers live in a darkness that is remarkably the same. More than once I have been in conversation with a respected scholar who confessed to me that he would like very much to believe in . . . . Continue Reading »

Linton: A CCM Star Goes Traditional

I’m a stringer for one of those “major American newspapers”—it’s fun to see your byline as long as you remember it’s lining a bird cage tomorrow—and as part of an assignment last week I interviewed a pretty successful gospel/country/pop singer, “pretty . . . . Continue Reading »

ABCs, liberals, and conservatives

Why do so many people these days sound like conservatives but still insist they are liberals? I recently had a conversation with a female lawyer who spoke as if she had just finished reading Oswald Spengler. When she learned that I was a college professor, she unleashed a torrent of vitriol against . . . . Continue Reading »

Is Islam an eastern or western religion?

I spoke last week of the fictions of relativism and concluded with one of E.M. Cioran’s typically laconic aphorisms about the East’s greater honesty toward the absolute. Well, maybe. But maybe not. I once read a marvelous book by Dava Sobel called Longitude: The True Story of a Lone . . . . Continue Reading »

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