Just to keep things interesting, I’m posting my response to JMR on the front page here. I thank him for his engagement on this issue, even if he is actually wrong about a lot of things.I think the heart of our disagreement is the Bible and how to read it.I think that’s unquestionably . . . . Continue Reading »
In his recent God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades , Rodney Stark challenges the conventional notion that Islamic civilization was more advanced than Christendom’s in the early middle ages. One part of his case is to show that much of Islamic civilization depended on the . . . . Continue Reading »
A sermon by my colleague, Rev. Dr. Benjamin Mayes, on this day of St. Matthias, Apostle and Martyr.Unremarkable MatthiasIn the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Dearly Beloved:Matthias is unremarkable. We have his feast on our Evangelical-Lutheran church year calendar simply . . . . Continue Reading »
In his excellent Theopolitical Imagination , William Cavanaugh points out that during the Reformation Catholic princes remained Catholic in those areas where the power of the Papacy had already been restricted. Because the princes could have their way, they didn’t need to change . . . . Continue Reading »
With full apologies for the vulgarity of the title (going back to a 70s piece of fluff top 40 music), it was the only thing that came to mind. The subject of prophecy, false prophets, and charlatans in our midst often inspires sarcasm within my heart. But I just could not help . . . . Continue Reading »
And you thought this was an easy one. You thought being a “social conservative” meant some sort of combination of pro-life, pro-family, pro-fiscal responsibility, pro-original intent, and so forth. You thought that your faith was on the leading edge of this ethic. Well, do I have news for you. But it will have to wait just a few minutes. You see, there is some correction of history that we need to do.
History, it seems, has been playing a dirty little trick on us. No longer are the socialism (national and international) of Hitler and Stalin the products of the Marxist-Progressive movement. Castro was not a “progressive” and Mao did not represent the Leftist turn of the modern liberal movement. History is a real trickster. Just like the human-caused global warming “scientists” who have written away the Little Ice Age, a new breed of Leftist “historians” have written away the bloody heritage of the Left and assigned it to — you guessed it — the social conservative. Continue Reading »
Margaret Visser has done it again. Author of The Rituals of Dinner , and The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church , she has now added The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude , an anthropological and philosophical study of gratitude, an examination . . . . Continue Reading »
In his recent The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future , Robert Darnton suggests that the development of information technologies brings the Enlightenment aspiration to democratize learning closer to realization. In his TNR review of Darnton’s book, Anthony Grafton quotes . . . . Continue Reading »
The folks at First Things published an article of mine on secularization in their “On the Square” space yesterday, September 30. . . . . Continue Reading »
Henri Pirenne, in his Economic and Social History of medieval Europe, describes the regulation of economic life in medieval towns during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Pirenne is admittedly old news, and perhaps more recent studies have corrected some of his claims. The town government had . . . . Continue Reading »
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