Joseph Knippenberg

By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard, whether you wanted to or not, about Hilary Rosen’s unkind comments about Ann Romney. Hilary Rosen, a political consultant who advises the Democratic National Committee, questioned on CNN Wednesday night whether Ann Romney understands the economic . . . . Continue Reading »

I just stumbled across this piece on the Acton Institute site, which called my attention to the fuss kicked up by NPR over what the adjective “Christian” means.  I find myself in agreement with the catholicity of Rev. Robert Sirico’s response—the part not quoted by the . . . . Continue Reading »

I was prepared—for once in a blue moon—to like this column by the Washington Post ‘s resident liberal Catholic scold, but, in the end there were too many jarring notes. To begin with what I rather liked: I want to suggest that what should most bother Christians of all political . . . . Continue Reading »

I just learned from the Heritage Foundation that the Obama Administration has created a panel to discuss establishing a measure to assess our national happiness . The good people at Heritage have more than a few misgivings about this undertaking, and not just about our ability to assess happiness . . . . Continue Reading »

The indispensable Jennifer Roback Morse argues that privatizing marriage is impossible .  I’m persuaded that she’s right with respect to the position she chooses to debate, but I wonder how she’d argue against (?) a different position, one that required everyone who chose to . . . . Continue Reading »

Ross Douthat offers a generous and lengthy response to my earlier post on his exchange with Yuval Levin. He’s right that the growth of evangelicalism has likely hit a plateau and hasn’t compensated for the decline of the mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches.  A higher . . . . Continue Reading »

National Review ‘s Katrina Trinko argues that Mitt Romney has an “evangelical problem.” In state after state, evangelicals have sent Mitt Romney a clear message: We’re just not that into you. Some evangelicals do pull the lever for Romney. But consistently there is . . . . Continue Reading »

I discuss the thinking behind the assertion of a right to contraception in a post for the Georgia Family Council site. My argument in a nutshell: many of the people who argue for such a right don’t simply mean a right to be free from others’ interference; they mean subsidized . . . . Continue Reading »

In his review of Charles Murray’s new book, Yuval Levin offers this as one of the reasons why Fishtown has fallen so far behind Belmont: [T]he cultural disaster Murray describes seems to be a failing of America’s moral (and therefore largely its religious) institutions. And although he . . . . Continue Reading »

Following in the footsteps of the 2008 Huckabee campaign , Rick Santorum has a “secret army” of homeschoolers.  Well, it’s not really a secret .  The real question is: how many more times can the same article be written? . . . . Continue Reading »