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Just Hospitality

Without quite meaning to, most ­Western countries have acquired large and growing numbers of Muslim minorities. The idea has slowly sunk in not only that Muslims are here to stay, but also that they remain committed to their faith. For many Muslims, this entails hostility to a Western culture still . . . . Continue Reading »

The Myth of Medieval Paganism

They don’t look very Christian—those strange faces made of leaves, and those women displaying cartoonishly enlarged genitals on the walls of medieval churches. Most people who have explored the medieval architecture of Western Europe have heard a tour guide explain that a particular carving . . . . Continue Reading »

Rooted Cosmopolitan

In 2011, I reviewed what was then Adam Zagajewski’s recent collection, Unseen Hand. In it, the poet, then in his mid-sixties, turned toward themes of life and death, loss and preservation. My review was laudatory. After its publication, a friend passed it along to Zagajewski, who on his . . . . Continue Reading »

Auschwitz Rightly Remembered

Catholics used to say humorously—back when mutual toleration among Christian churches, or between Christian and non-Christian persuasions, was not yet an admission of religious indifference—that no faith was so close to the truth, nor so manifestly erroneous, as Anglicanism. This is how . . . . Continue Reading »

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