R. R. Reno

Social media is aflame with interest in Barton Swaim's criticism of the heavily revised third edition of John Stott's classic of evangelical theology, Basic Christianity. I'm glad that so many share Swaim's desire that our theological inheritance not be ground into pablum by the relevance mill. But . . . . Continue Reading »

The Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Laetitia, brings into the open a disturbing trend in this pontificate. Ironically, Pope Francis’s pastoral vision seems to entail the same use-oriented individualism that he so forcefully criticizes in social and economic life.Francis doesn’t . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at the Guardian, Paul Mason writes about the disintegration of Britain's working class. The occasion is the publication of a report on educational achievement, analyzed in terms of the ethnicity of pupils. It turns out that white British kids fall behind during their school years, with . . . . Continue Reading »

Trump didn’t just win in South Carolina; he won the white Evangelical vote. It’s a striking success for a thrice-married man with a penchant for profanity and a history of supporting Planned Parenthood. Evangelical leaders are wringing their hands. Back in January, when it had become evident . . . . Continue Reading »

Justice Antonin Scalia’s death was a blow. Like so many others, I depended upon Scalia to speak up for me. He did so clearly, forcefully, and with wit. That counted for a lot, especially in recent years. History is against us, we’re told. We’re the mean-spirited judges, the Pharisaical . . . . Continue Reading »

We’re in a clarifying moment. Since Super Tuesday and Trump’s successes in a number of states, the Republican Party establishment is mounting an all-out effort to discredit him and to prevent him from becoming the GOP nominee. If these efforts succeed, something like the standard politics of the . . . . Continue Reading »

What does it mean to be an intellectual? The word comes from the Latin word for understanding, intellego. Lego has dense, multifaceted meanings: to choose, select, collect, and gather. It also means to read. When inter gets added, which means “between,” we get a compound meaning, something like . . . . Continue Reading »

Between the World and Me has been received with great fanfare. It won the National Book Award in nonfiction for 2015, and its author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, was recently awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. Our liberal establishment is aflutter, hailing Coates as his generation’s spokesman for . . . . Continue Reading »

♦ It came in the context of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s refusal to throw his weight behind the push to OK gay-married clergy in the Church of England. Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, Martyn Percy isn’t happy. He makes the usual claim that history has spoken. “A theologically . . . . Continue Reading »

The Republican establishment has swung into DEFCON I, maximum force alert. Last month I contributed to a widely publicized symposium at National Review. Our hope was to stop his rise. The liberal establishment is, if anything, even more agitated. Trump transgresses the rules of political engagement, to say nothing of political correctness. A stream-of-consciousness, reality TV show insult machine leads the race for the Republican Party nomination. How did we come to this point?

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