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  1. Faith

Crisis of Legitimacy

People talk a lot about polarization. It is true that polling shows a growing partisan divide. But our rancorous political atmosphere is a symptom, not the cause. We are polarized because the credibility of our ruling class has eroded. A trustworthy establishment anchors society and brings stability . . . . Continue Reading »

Our Divided House

Speaking to a Baltimore audience in 1864, Abraham Lincoln made an observation that remains ­uncomfortably true today. “The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty,” he said, “and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using . . . . Continue Reading »

The Toll of Unbelief

On a single weekend in June 2021, seven people died of drug overdoses in Rochester, New York. On that Saturday morning, three adults were found dead on a front porch on a quiet, residential street. Inside the house were six orphaned children. Lab tests showed that the lethal agent was heroin laced . . . . Continue Reading »

On The Threshold

“I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry. . . I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place . . . . Continue Reading »

Advancing in Place

We’re stuck. The signal innovations of modern times—mass water purification, electricity, automobiles, modern manufacturing processes—are behind us. This slowing of invention presents a problem. We are trapped by the imperative of ever more innovation even as innovation becomes harder . . . . Continue Reading »

Food For Two Meals

Philosophers are supposed to be doubters. When we think of ­Socrates, the patron saint and martyr of philosophy, we usually fix on the early Platonic dialogues, which depict him as a man who defended no positive doctrine but was such a nuisance with his doubt-inducing questions that the guardians . . . . Continue Reading »

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