Afew months ago, the morning before my eldest brother was to return home to Norway after a long visit, I dreamed that I had just awakened in the early light of dawn to find my dog Roland sitting at the end of my bed, a bar of softly glaucous shadow—cast by the central casement frame of my . . . . Continue Reading »
The Future of Religious Freedom: Global Challengesedited by allen d. hertzke oxford, 386 pages, $29.95 In matters of religious freedom, we seem to be living in the best and the worst of times. The best, because an abstract, propositional assent to religious freedom as a fundamental human right . . . . Continue Reading »
Early light slants low across the lawn.Cuplike, this little valley brims with sun.Pages fill and empty. In the mistof a still morning, nothing’s out of . . . . Continue Reading »
“Imagine Living in a Socialist USA” demands the cover of the latest issue of the Indypendent, a lefty paper published in Brooklyn, and besides the articles on that subject and transgender rock bands is one on the paper’s “all-time NFL non-conformist . . . . Continue Reading »
In 2009, the remains of Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished last novel, The Original of Laura, were published, more than three decades after the dying author had asked his son Dmitri to destroy them. In 2012, Nabokov’s first large literary work, a play entitled The Tragedy of Mister Morn, appeared in . . . . Continue Reading »
Richard Dawkins’ An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist invites comparisons with C. S. Lewis’ Surprised by Joy. Both are memoirs by thinkers who seemed a little surprised to end up as apologists, much less as writers whom growing numbers would credit with their conversion or . . . . Continue Reading »
Alasdair MacIntyre once quipped that “facts, like telescopes and wigs for gentlemen, were a seventeenth-century invention.” Something similar can be said about sexual orientation: Heterosexuals, like typewriters and urinals (also, obviously, for gentlemen), were an invention of the 1860s. . . . . Continue Reading »
Judging by the tracks programmed by my local classical music radio station, no composer of merit existed before the Baroque period. DJs with soothing voices regularly serve up Vivaldi, Handel, Scarlatti, and Bach, especially during rush hour. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons ought to be renamed the Four . . . . Continue Reading »
“BrickHouse Security saves Jesus for 8th year in a row, offers free GPS tracking of nativity scenes and holiday displays.” Somehow escaping The sharp eye Of angels, shepherds, And magi, Thieves snatch the infant From the crèche To spirit God off In the flesh. Clearly, it’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Recently Cornel West and I visited Swarthmore College, where I received my undergraduate education, for a day of conversations on the theme “The Bond of Truth-Seeking.” Following our visit, I was interviewed by Victor Gomes, a student at the college, for the campus newspaper The . . . . Continue Reading »
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