Questions for Philosophical Religion

To open these reflections with an unavoidably terrible sentence: Peter Gordon’s review of Carlos Fraenkel’s book Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza in the New Republic is an interesting account of what sounds like an interesting book. Still, the review left me with several . . . . Continue Reading »

The Lecture Works, and It Always Has

The Atlantic ran an interview with David Thornburg, entitled “Lectures Didn’t Work in 1350­—and They Still Don’t Work Today.” It’s full of the typical technology-will-save-education balderdash. I’ll skip any comments on that topic. Let’s talk about this assertion that lectures . . . . Continue Reading »

First Links — 11.19.13

Still in the World Joe Carter, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission Crops, Towns, Government James C. Scott, London Review of Books Defending ‘Branch Theory’ Fr. Jonathan,  Conciliar Anglican Sex and the Polis: A Symposium Christopher Fisher,  Intercollegiate Review . . . . Continue Reading »

The Bourgeois Are At the Gates

In 1939, the historian Christopher Dawson penned the essay ” Catholicism and the Bourgeois Mind ,” a call for resistance to the bourgeois mentality. Dawson set a hostile tone almost immediately by declaring that “it is difficult to deny that there is a fundamental disharmony . . . . Continue Reading »

After Obamacare

Will it be single-payer?  If conservatives don’t offer a viable alternative using incremental changes, single-payer is what we will (eventually) get.  Yuval Levin and Ramesh Ponnuru point conservatives in the direction of the reforms we need.    And from now a word . . . . Continue Reading »

What Isn’t The Story

Nancy Pelosi was just as bad as you’ve heard on Meet The Press . There was her determined denial of the obvious (that Obamacare had led to the cancellation of insurance policies for millions). There was her declaration of utter ruthlessness in pursuit of the passage of Obamacare (“If we . . . . Continue Reading »

The Brave New World?

So the big question for my TECHNOLOGY class this week is whether the book (and the idea) of THE BRAVE NEW WORLD is likely right about the chief danger facing us in our increasingly biotechnological future. Ben Storey, a student of Leon Kass, told us last week at Berry College that Leon thinks . . . . Continue Reading »

First Links — 11.18.13

Aquinas and Natural Science James Chastek, Just Thomism Bring Them In: On Prisons and the Poor Sen. Mike Lee We Believe in Institutions James K. A. Smith, Comment Three Kinds of Hope Stratford Caldecott, Imaginative Conservative Lewis Joins Poet’s Corner Iona McLaren, Telegraph . . . . Continue Reading »