What We’ve Been Reading—November 2021

by Editors

Our editors reflect on Czesław Miłosz, crime fiction, Roger Scruton, and the divine right of kings. Continue Reading »

2 Nov 2021 0

A Good Word for Locke

by Richard J. Mouw

The lecturer was setting forth a biblical perspective on the role of government, with special attention to the Pauline text in Romans 13. At one point he introduced a rhetorical flourish with a passing negative reference to John Locke. The Bible sees the authority to govern as coming from God—“and not,” the lecturer said, “from a human contract, as John Locke insisted.” Continue Reading »

4 Aug 2015 0

Natural Rights, The Imago Dei, and the Moral Economy of Sex

by Matthew J. Franck

Mary Ann Glendon wrote nearly a quarter century ago that “a new form of rights talk has come into being” in contemporary America, in which rights are “presented as absolute, individual, and independent of any necessary relation to our responsibilities. Continue Reading »

24 Feb 2015 0

The Voracious Nought

by Peter Lawler

I just got back from giving a lecture at a small liberal-arts college. The tenured professors were complaining. (That, after all, is allegedly what tenure gives professors the unlimited right to do). Their main complaint: Students are no longer doing the reading for “core texts” or . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Apr 2014 0