Joe Carter

1. America’s Royal Family One of the things that’s often forgotten is that, by virtue of the annexation of Hawaii as a state, the United States does have a royal family — one with no constitutional status, but one which is also widely recognized within one state of the fifty. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Do you need to be a good speller to be a good writer? The Oregon Department of Education doesn’t seem to think so : On Wednesday, students across the state will start taking their standardized writing exams, and for the first time, those doing their essays online will get to use spell check. . . . . Continue Reading »

Dane Ortlund, a senior editor at Crossway Books, recently asked a handful of scholars and pastors to distill the message of the Bible to a single sentence . While there are a number of good responses, I would answer a bit differently. I would say that the message of the Bible is the same as . . . . Continue Reading »

Earlier this week I mentioned a paper by Ross S. Kilpatrick that claims the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece, the Mona Lisa , incorporates images inspired by the Roman poet Horace and Florentine poet Petrarch. Dr. Kilpatrick was kind enough to send me a link to the paper, Horace, Petrach and Leonardo . . . . Continue Reading »

Right now there is snow present in 49 of the 50 U.S. states : After big snow and ice events in the Southeast, Plains, and Midwest this week, 49 out of the 50 states currently have snow on the ground – yes, even Hawaii, where snow falls in Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea all winter. Thanks a lot, . . . . Continue Reading »

Christianity Today has a good article about the resurgence of true first-person storytelling and how it borrows from Christian tradition. It isn’t too much of a stretch to say that this is very much what is happening in live storytelling across New York City. Whether the stories are funny or . . . . Continue Reading »

When an entire country evicts God, what do they do with his houses? What else, the new gods move in : Making your home a temple is gaining new meaning in the Netherlands, where churches are being repurposed as living spaces. Since 1970 more than a thousand churches have been closed in the country, . . . . Continue Reading »

I’ve shaken my fist in anger at stalled cars, storm clouds, and incompetent meteorologists. I’ve even, on one terrible day that included a dead alternator, a blaring blaring tornado-warning siren, and a horrifically wrong weather forecast, cursed all three at once. I’ve fumed at furniture, cussed at crossing guards, and held a grudge against Gun Barrel City, Texas. I’ve been mad at just about anything you can imagine. Continue Reading »

With 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English, the Oxford English Dictionary is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. Now, for the next two weeks, you can access the online edition for free. Simply login using “trynewoed” as both . . . . Continue Reading »

In the latest issue of Dappled Things , Robert T. Miller argues that Catholic moral theology should abandon the concept of human dignity as the basis for morality in favor of a virtue-theoretic one based on the final end for man. I may be missing some subtle theological nuances, but it appears to . . . . Continue Reading »