First Thoughts

Upcoming Events Roundup — 10.31.14

Rémi Brague in New York, art and science in Massachusetts, and more. Continue Reading »

First Links—10.31.14

As New York Archdiocese Prepares to Reorganize Parishes, Catholics Hope Theirs Will Be Saved
Sharon Otterman, The New York Times

How the Brides of ISIS Are Attracting Western Women
Ruth Michaelson, The Week

What’s Wrong With Mindfulness? More Than You Might Think
Melanie McDonagh, The Spectator

Empty Pews
G. Ronald Murphy, America Magazine

Operation Klinghoffer

Although initially dismissed by many reviewers—(here’s John Updike, condemning it alongside Hamlet: “an orgy of argumentation . . . too many characters, numerous long speeches, and a vacillating, maddening hero”)—Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock (1993) has undergone something of a critical renaissance in the new millennium. Perhaps this is because it feels more immediately present than much of Roth’s wide oeuvre: John Demjanjuk’s trials continued until 2011; a Second Intifada has come and gone, with rumblings, perhaps, of a Third. And now, courtesy of the New York Metropolitan Opera, even Leon Klinghoffer is back in the news. Continue Reading »

History: A Runaway Jury?

The rhetoric of the LGBTQ movement is not simply sentimental.  The language of historical process also plays its part. Continue Reading »

First Links—10.30.14

Speed Kills
Mark C. Taylor, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Inside Twitter’s Ambitious Plan to Kill the Password
Casey Newton, The Verge

Lila: Too Mysterious By Half
Peter Blair, Fare Forward

From Sparkling Celebrations to Canadian Tragedy, the Week in Photos
The Wall Street Journal

Misreading Scripture Alone

A new survey reports that “most American evangelicals hold views condemned as heretical by... the councils of the early church.” Is a deficient understanding of sola scriptura and tradition to blame?
Continue Reading »

First Links—10.29.14

Between Magisterium and Magistrate: Notre Dame’s Choice on Marriage’s Meaning
Michael Bradley, The Public Discourse

ISIS’s War on the World’s Ancient Religions
Stephanie Saldana, The Wall Street Journal

Moral and Divine (and Terrifying)
Dan Piepenbring, The Paris Review

Positive Chastity

Last week at National Review, David French had an article entitled “The Vindication of Christian Sexual Ethics” that takes a welcome turn in the controversies over sexual behavior on college campuses that have erupted in recent months. (See here and here and here for examples of thousands of stories from that last month.) Instead of focusing on incidents of proven and alleged sexual assault, then maintaining or denying “campus rape culture” at work, French speaks of “sexual-revolution values” in general and sets against them Christian values of sobriety, chastity before marriage, and fidelity after. Continue Reading »

First Links – 10.28.14

How Facebook Is Changing the Way Its Users Consume Journalism
Ravi Somaiya, The New York Times

Look At Your Money
Trevor Logan, Curator Magazine

The Virtues of Brunch
Gracy Olmstead, The American Conservative

The Mineral Night/ A Child in the Likeness of God
Marly Youmans, Books & Culture

Distinctly Defamatory

In a self-destructive spasm of what we used to call Freudian projection, Michael Sean Winters claims that Archbishop Charles Chaput ought to apologize for and withdraw the remarks he made a week ago, in answering a question after his Erasmus Lecture, about the recent synod in Rome. . . . . Continue Reading »