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Why We Need the Dark

Jesus taught that “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19). As an anthropological and ethical statement, this is unequivocally true. But do we need physical darkness?In a National Geographic article entitled “Our Vanishing . . . . Continue Reading »

Cut-Price Judaism? Puh-leeze!

Newsweek religion commentator Lisa Miller complains that the cost of synagogue affiliation is driving Jews away from their religion. Man-bites-dog has nothing on this one; when is the last time that anyone has argued that the big problem with the Jews is that they are short of money? Nonetheless, . . . . Continue Reading »

Are These the Ten Best Hymns of All Time?

We are delighted with the tremendous response to our recent post “Are These the Ten Worst Hymns of All Time?” All along, our plan was to follow the ten worst with the ten best. So now, after much consideration (and a bit of solitary suffering, here and there, among our staffers; it does hurt, . . . . Continue Reading »

Reno on Henry James, Part II

The folks at Azure have generously unlocked my article on Henry James , which I wrote about earlier in the week , recommending it to readers who are interested in thinking about literature from a conservative perspective. If you like the essay, please consider subscribing to Azure . The quarterly . . . . Continue Reading »

Singing the Psalms: Moscow, Idaho

The community of Christians worshipping at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, is part of a small denomination called the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches. They are liturgically distinctive in that they have developed their own way of singing the biblical psalms under the guidance of Dr. . . . . Continue Reading »

Time Poverty and the Sabbath

We all struggle with rest.The paradox of modernity, according to theologian Colin Gunton, is that “a world dedicated to the pursuit of leisure and of machines that save labour is chiefly marked by its levels of rush, frenetic busyness and stress.” Liberals and conservatives, secularists . . . . Continue Reading »

Cuba Libre

Through the negotiations of Cuba’s Cardinal Ortega , the Cuban government has just agreed to release 52 political prisoners —about two-thirds of the prisoners known to have been seized in the 2003 government campaign against political opposition. During John Paul II’s 1998 visit to . . . . Continue Reading »

The Unborn

” Saving nature’s unborn from Gulf oil disaster ,” the headline at CNN reads. Hard to know how the oil spill threatened them, but the subject looked interesting. So I clicked on it, to find that it was a feel-good story about efforts to relocate clutches of sea-turtle eggs to . . . . Continue Reading »

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