James Nuechterlein

On February 24, the State of Texas executed Betty Lou Beets, age sixty-two, for the murder of her husband in 1985. Ordinarily, the death of Ms. Beets by lethal injection would not have drawn particular attention. The death penalty is now common in the U.S., especially in Texas, where Ms. Beets’ . . . . Continue Reading »

Anniversaries are occasions for nostalgic celebration, for recalling to oneself and others how it is that this good thing came to be. As one who was present at the creation of this journal, I am pleased to mark its tenth birthday”though vaguely distressed to note how rapidly a decade can pass. (A . . . . Continue Reading »

When I heard that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) planned to send 100,000 volunteers to Chicago next summer to evangelize the city, my first reaction was, Good luck. (Perhaps I have been living in New York too long.) Evangelism, of course, is essential to Christianity. The Great Commission . . . . Continue Reading »

Americans have always thought of their country as other and better than anyplace else. The most obvious measure of comparative superiority was with Europe, the place where, through most of the nation’s history, most people came from and against which they assessed their achievements. The protean . . . . Continue Reading »

Most of us, in our effort to make sense of life, begin at home: we try, in the first instance, to make sense of our own lives. That attempt involves bringing order to what, in the living, has often seemed a disorderly process. The mental auto biographies we piece together do not work well if they . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s a sad but unavoidable question: Where did the civil rights movement go wrong? A cause that, at its modern origins in the 1950s, no decent person could oppose has over the years taken turns that even many of its most committed advocates find morally problematic. It’s been a long downhill . . . . Continue Reading »

Most American conservatives think they’re engaged in a culture war, and many of them think they’re losing it. Now along comes Jeremy Rabkin, a thoughtful conservative commentator and professor of government at Cornell University, who tells them they’re wrong on both counts (“The Culture War . . . . Continue Reading »

A week in London at the end of May, and a number of things are not quite as expected. Beginning with the weather. Five of the eight days are sunny and pleasantly warm, and only on the last day is there rain and heavy fog. My daughter, who has been living in the city since last fall and who acts as . . . . Continue Reading »

Just when you’ve talked yourself into thinking it might not be so bad to belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) after all, the church comes out with another study on sex. This time it’s from the Division for Outreach (DO), by way of the Gay and Lesbian Outreach Study Team, . . . . Continue Reading »

Conservatives are still a long way from recovering from their post-impeachment funk. The most dispirited among them talk as if the American people, in their failure to recognize the necessity for President Clinton’s removal from office, should themselves be put in the dock. In this view, the . . . . Continue Reading »