Universalism begins with the ancient gnostics, and once embraced by Christians, tends to unravel every major Christian dogma. This powerful tendency helps us understand—if not explain—Hart’s fall into Hindu metaphysics and gnostic theology.
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Despite its flaws, Louise Penny’s latest novel is ultimately a book of fundamental human goodness. It encourages us to look at a child, as happens at a significant New Year’s Eve moment, and not see “Down syndrome,” but a person with a name—a person given for us to love. Continue Reading »
Modernity is both an epoch and an ideology. We have to live in the epoch; we don't have to accept the ideology, even for a moment. Continue Reading »
For postmodern thinkers, Christianity’s scandal of particularity proves an insurmountable stumbling block. The eternal God’s unique incarnation in Jesus Christ is absorbed and neutered either in the name of the System or of the Non-System—both equally totalitarian. Continue Reading »
The Index of Self-Destructive Acts is the Big New York Book of the 2020s, as Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities was for the 1980s. Continue Reading »
Good bookstores invite us to contemplate truths that lie beyond our everyday concerns. Continue Reading »
Does apocalypticism about American Christianity merit more serious consideration? Hard to say, but I’m struck by the radically truncated and highly selective historical memory that seems to characterize so many accounts of our current situation. Continue Reading »
In his new book, Bill McKibben wonders whether the flag, cross, and station wagon of his youth were really so good for America. Continue Reading »
A recent book on the history of Native American rock art invites readers to experience both a profound sense of otherness and a fundamental human bond, neither one cancelling out the other. Continue Reading »
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