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We Need Institutions and Trust

Imagine you are part of that growing majority of Americans who do not watch Fox News, do not listen to conservative talk radio, and do not frequent conservative websites. You have heard about the Confederate flag controversy. You have heard all about Donald Trump's various idiocies. What have you heard about the horrors emanating from Planned Parenthood? There is a chance you have heard nothing. Perhaps you read a story that was a barely comprehensible jumble of competing allegations. Perhaps you heard about how some extremists are viciously attacking a respected provider of women's health services. If we can't reach such people, we cannot win lasting victories. Continue Reading »

​Some Correspondence With an Atheist

Seated next to me at dinner was a man about my age. Like me, he’d retired to Maine. We hit it off, and after our dinner, we began an email correspondence. At the dinner, my friend said he admired a book I didn’t like, so I sent him a copy of a review of the book I’d written. The review tipped . . . . Continue Reading »

Flannery O'Connor and Catholic Realism

From this vale of tears, one can never be sure about the boundaries of acceptable behavior at the Throne of Grace. Is laughter at earthly foibles permitted? Encouraged? I like to think so. Which inclines me to believe that, this past June 3, Miss Mary Flannery O’Connor of Milledgeville, Georgia, was having herself a good cackle. Continue Reading »

Postures of Prayer

How ought we to pray? Kneeling, standing, sitting, prostrate? Should we pray out loud, in song, or silently? The most specific instructions we receive in Scripture pertain to the content of our prayers, not to the outward delivery of those prayers. In Matthew 6, when Jesus instructs the disciples . . . . Continue Reading »

Pray for Those Who Persecute You

Like most people, I was appalled by the exposé of Planned Parenthood released last week by the Center for Medical Progress. Caught on video, Planned Parenthood’s senior medical director callously discusses the harvest and transfer of tiny hearts, lungs, and livers. She discusses where and how to . . . . Continue Reading »

​A Radically Toxic Combination

Tullian Tchividjian was Evangelical royalty, and once again we are reminded never to put our hope in princes. Grandson to Billy Graham, Tchividjian assumed the legendary pulpit of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church on Easter Sunday, 2009. Now he has joined Mark Driscoll and Ted Haggard as a megachurch . . . . Continue Reading »

Freemasons in America

That Religion in Which All Men Agree: Freemasonry in American Culturedavid g. hackett, 336 pages, berkeley, $49.95 While many readers will know about traditional Catholic opposition to Freemasonry, many may be surprised to discover how Freemasonry engendered significant Protestant opposition as . . . . Continue Reading »

​The Pieta of Joan of Arc

Fort Drum, home to the 10th Mountain Division and, until very recently, to my family, has recently provided something rather unusual for its soldiers: great art. It is a very refreshing development that one can now walk into the main entrance of the Main Post Chapel of this large military . . . . Continue Reading »

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