A Bodily Faith
by Robert P. ImbelliA Church that neglects to exhort and instruct about the sins of the body, be they sexual or social, risks losing its Christological center. Continue Reading »
Longing After the Fleshpots
by Luke BurgisA society that lacks a teleology of desire also lacks normative, transcendent models of desire. “Few people want to be saints nowadays,” wrote René Girard, “but everybody is trying to lose weight.” Continue Reading »
Coercion and Conversion Therapy
by Ephraim RadnerA recent letter signed by leading English church leaders implies that encouraging people to live the sexual lives ordered by their biological sex is a form of oppression. This strikes me as completely misconceived. Continue Reading »
Rowan Williams and Our Sentimental Age
by Carl R. TruemanThe recent letter to Boris Johnson from a number of British religious leaders is an example of how sentimental mush has come to replace careful moral reasoning in the minds of so many. Continue Reading »
What They Didn't Tell Me
In Sex Ed
by Leah Libresco Sargeant
How Natural Family Planning taught me that the body is not a problem. Continue Reading »
Obergefell and the New Gnosticism
by Sherif GirgisFor decades, the Sexual Revolution was supposed to be about freedom. Today, it is about coercion. Once, it sought to free our sexual choices from restrictive laws and unwanted consequences. Now, it seeks to free our sexual choices from other people's disapproval. Continue Reading »
See No Evil
by Samuel D. JamesIf there’s any good reason to distrust the self-awareness of contemporary progressives, it's the cultural epidemic of pornography. Of all the Sexual Revolution’s fruits, porn is arguably the one that has rotted fastest. It has defied the categorical wisdom of libertines by growing in users and . . . . Continue Reading »
Hitting the Gym
by James MumfordI am not attracted to the men at the gym; I just want to look like them. As for my wife, she’s attracted to me; she just wants me to look like them, too. There they are, pulling and pushing and sweating. Committed, compulsive—lifting in lines, running in rows, spurred on by the programs . . . . Continue Reading »
Delighting in Death?
by Carl R. TruemanWhy do many see abortion as a positive good? Continue Reading »
A Theory for Tattoos
by Mark BauerleinThe motives for tattoos are many, but they all have a common subtext. A tattoo can mark a group identity—sailors, soldiers, inmates, gangs, motorcyclists. It can memorialize a person or event, as in a virtual archive of snapshots of tattoos showing names and faces of deceased loved ones (I attended a presentation of the archive by two academics in Toronto last year). Sometimes they happen by blunt peer pressure, a set of 20-year-olds on Saturday night getting drunk, knowing not what to do until one of them blurts, “Let’s go get a tat and a ring!” (a good friend tells me of pulling out just as his turn came up). Continue Reading »
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