I recently had a very interesting conversation with Wheaton art historian and First Things writer Mathew Milliner. Matt has been trying to think about how to understand artistic creativity in relation to cultural authority. T.S. Eliot is an obvious place to start. His famous essay, “Tradition . . . . Continue Reading »
World magazine breaks the story about conservative Christians who view David Barton of Wallbuilders as an embarrassment. The focus of the current controversy is Barton’s new book on Jefferson. My friend Jay Richards doesn’t mince words; he says this book and Barton’s other books . . . . Continue Reading »
So I read Jay Cost’s article comparing LBJ’s strategy in 1964 to Obama’s strategy today. I’m not sure that the analogy holds up on the level of tactics. Sure LBJ tried to paint Goldwater as an unacceptable extremist. He succeeded. Jimmy Carter tried to do . . . . Continue Reading »
Matt Milliner builds on his earlier thesis about a contemporary movement in academia (universities, he claims, are now entering a “postsecular” phase in which religious arguments and perspectives are once again appreciated and modern rationalism looks more and more like an . . . . Continue Reading »
The pro life movement often argues that abortion rights is a racist agenda because of the disproportionate number of minority babies terminated. I don’t agree with that argument, actually. I don’t think that most pro choice activists are racist or that abortionists do what . . . . Continue Reading »
Is that fair? Conservatives in academia will not find this surprising, I think. According to Scott Jasick, in “Admitting to Bias” in this morning’s Inside Higher Education , there is a very distinct bias in all aspects of academia, including, naturally, hiring. Just . . . . Continue Reading »
I’ve heard so much about the WinShape Foundation’s “anti-gay” contributions that I decided to do a little checking. Here’s what I learned, beginning from the Equality Matters site , which tells us the following: WinShape Gave Over $1.9 Million To Anti-Gay Groups. . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the drawbacks of versified psalmody is that it may reflect too much the prejudices of the versifier and not enough the biblical text. I came across an interesting example of this in Henry Alexander Glass’s fascinating and witty book, The Story of the Psalters. Some Reformed Christians . . . . Continue Reading »
George Weigel on organ-harvesting in China : The brutalities of the Chinese regime have also had a toxic effect on China’s public moral culture, as was demonstrated last year in a widely-viewed YouTube video: a truck driver in a Chinese city ran over a small child who was crawling across the . . . . Continue Reading »
Last night I nearly completed a long-deferred sorting of Richard John Neuhaus’s CD’s and LP’s. It’s an impressive collection, encompassing a great deal of classical music and some of the folk music written and recorded by his friends in the anti-war movement. There are . . . . Continue Reading »
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