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Briefly Noted

Richard Mouw, for twenty years president of ­Fuller Seminary and still on its faculty, updates us on his thinking about a matter long close to his heart: the disputed neo-Calvinist or ­Kuyperian doctrine of common grace. Conversational and personal in style, the book has hardly a paragraph without . . . . Continue Reading »

Pessimism Vindicated

The founders would be appalled” is a common sentiment in American politics, expressed mostly by the right. Those on the left, by contrast, are overjoyed at the thought of appalling the founders, whom they accuse of a raft of unforgivable sins, which can be expiated (and even then, only partially) . . . . Continue Reading »

Lincoln’s Almost Chosen People

In his wonderful book Land of Lincoln, Andrew Ferguson recalls meeting an immigrant family from Thailand who ran a restaurant in Chicago just a few blocks from the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood where I grew up. This couple, Oscar Esche and his wife, had developed a passionate devotion to . . . . Continue Reading »

The True Con

In June, an announcer on CBS observed, “George Will is essentially unchanged from the way he looked forty years ago.” He still wears Brooks Brothers. He still parts his hair on the left. And in politics, while lesser men have compromised with the ascendancy of ­Donald Trump, Will has stayed . . . . Continue Reading »

By Starlight Undiminished

On behalf of the Second Continental Congress in declaring America’s independence, Jefferson in the first paragraph of the Declaration drew upon authority greater than the Crown, the British Empire, and the long traditions of English law and government. “With a firm Reliance on the protection of . . . . Continue Reading »

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