Archive

Margaret Kennedy—novelist, playwright, historian, critic—is having another moment. Feted and famous after the 1924 publication of her second novel, The Constant Nymph, Kennedy stopped writing novels during World War II, re-emerged afterward with a series…

The furious debate about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has revealed an unexpected fact: Many people take Homer seriously, very seriously. Modifying the canonical epic in the least detail, it appears,...

The Elizabethan commonplace comparing creative production to pregnancy and birth is baked into the English language. We “conceive” an idea, though some prove “abortive.” A new project or business...

The music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has been described as spiritual, transcendent, Eastern, angelic, ethereal, mystical, ascetic, tranquil, otherworldly. Jeremy Begbie adds “escapist” to the modifiers, criticizing Pärt...

Nearly forgotten today, The Martyrdom of Man was once considered a substitute Bible for secularists. Published in 1872 by the Scottish adventurer William Winwood Reade, the volume had Winston...

We live, writes Italian economist Luigino Bruni in his The Economy of Salvation, in an exhausted age in which “words are tired” and “worn out,” when “old things have...

The Bible figures the Spirit as breath, wind, smoke, and flame. He blows where he will, circulates invisibly, flickers like glory. You can hear his voice, but you can’t...

Ascension Day, celebrated by the Western Church on May 14 this year, is the neglected stepchild of the Christian year. Advent has its calendars and its wreaths; Christmas its...

I ’m late to the party, but, at a friend’s suggestion, I recently watched Detectorists, a BBC Four comedy that ran for three seasons between 2014 and 2022. Created,...

Reformed thinkers have recently been debating whether or not civil officials should endorse Christianity and promote and protect the church. James Baird’s King of Kings concisely assembles a biblical...

God is not mocked, Paul tells us (Gal. 6:7). Matthew’s Passion narrative (Matt. 27:27–44) suggests otherwise. Matthew tells us very little about Jesus’s physical sufferings. For him, the cross...

Does the U.S.-Israel assault on Iran fill the criteria of Christian just war theory? A number of observers have asked the question, including R. R. Reno, and given inconclusive...

Way back in the day, when Elon Musk stalked the halls of the federal bureaucracy swinging his giant, if metaphorical, chainsaw, we learned a lot about the U.S. Agency...

Natural law theory teaches that God embedded a teleological moral order in the world, such that things mature toward fixed ends. Human beings exist to realize both natural and...

A lawyer friend who defends cops in use-of-force cases cautioned me not to draw conclusions about the Renee Good shooting from video evidence, no matter how decisive it looks....