David Klinghoffer, the “Kingdom of Priests” blogger at Beliefnet, was telling me the other day about the Orthodox shul in Seattle at which he davens. Very few members of the synagogue (the rabbi excepted) were raised in Orthodox homes. Almost all are Jews who embraced Orthodoxy as . . . . Continue Reading »
The following was published in the 9 March 2009 issue of Christian Courier as part of my “Principalities & Powers” column:In our postchristian society, appeals to human rights have become the functional equivalent of the biblical prophets’ “thus saith the Lord.” . . . . Continue Reading »
On September 12, 1960, Senator and Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy went to Houston to deliver a speech on religious toleranc e before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers. The speech was one of the most deleterious and misguided in modern . . . . Continue Reading »
Niall Ferguson provides a simple, clear, and insightful portrayal of the (potential) rise and fall of the American empire in his article Complexity and Collapse, Empires on the Edge of Chaos, from the March/April 2010 edition of Foreign Affairs. The thread of his analysis follows a thread provided . . . . Continue Reading »
From the abstract of Pinkovskiy and Sala?i?Martin’s working paper ” African Poverty is Falling . . . Much Faster than You Think! ” (PDF): The conventional wisdom that Africa is not reducing poverty is wrong. Using the methodology of Pinkovskiy and Sala?i?Martin (2009), we estimate . . . . Continue Reading »
The most oft broken vow by Christians, says theologian Carl Trueman , isn’t marital vows to remain faithful, ministerial vows to preach the gospel, or baptismal vows to raise children in the fear and nurture of the Lord: No. The most broken vow is almost certainly that by which church . . . . Continue Reading »
I have always thought that every academic–or wannabe, like me–ought have one or two hypotheses that are held very loosely, are somewhat defensible but impossible to prove, and just fringe enough to make academic parties interesting. One such hypothesis that I have occasionally advanced is that . . . . Continue Reading »
First, go read the great symposium at The New Atlantis , starring Pomocon’s own Peter & Ivan plus the good Professor Deneen. Then, go read this grim report at the Washington Monthly . . . . . Continue Reading »
Conservatives probably shouldn’t have a favorite Marxist literary critic, but Terry Eagleton is mine. (True, he’s also the only Marxist literary critic I’ve ever read but I suspect that even if I read others he’d retain the title.) Reading his Literary Theory convinced me that . . . . Continue Reading »
A guest post by Rev. Dr. Holger Sonntag. Since Dr. Sonntag is from Germany and very familiar with the ecclesiastical situation, I asked if he would have any thoughts on the resignation of Dr. Margot Käßmann, who was the head of the EKiD and the bishop of the largest territorial Lutheran . . . . Continue Reading »
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