So when, at the last debate, Gingrich was asked why he got paid $300,000 by Freddie Mac, he said he offered them “advice as a historian.” I’m guessing that the most innocent plausible scenario is that the advice went "something like this" Today it turns out that . . . . Continue Reading »
Make allowances for Schmemann’s settled anti-Western bias, but there is still a lot to be said for his account of the rise of secularism in the West. Its roots lie in the abandonment of the eschatological character of early Christianity: “It replaced the tension, essential in the early . . . . Continue Reading »
In his The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy , Schmemann notes the importance of the anomaly of Constantine’s unbaptized condition. In Byzantine liturgical tradition, the conversion of Constantine is compared to that of Paul - both encountered Christ directly, without mediation of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Schmemann ( Church, World, Mission: Reflections on Orthodoxy and the West ) admits that in the east the church “surrendered” its “juridical” and “administrative” independence to the empire. But he claims that this is not a betrayal of the church’s true . . . . Continue Reading »
Since the 2008 election, Henry Olsen has been one of the most astute observers of electoral trends. Olsen made the point that if Republicans do not substantially improve their share of the votes among nonwhites, they are going to have to win landslides among white voters. As far as . . . . Continue Reading »
I was going to write something longish about the excellent Henry Olsen, but I’m kind of tired and it would take more mental energy than I have at the moment. So I’ll go back to shooting fish in a barrel. Herman Cain has had a tough day. His answer on Libya was . . . . Continue Reading »
“I said to the president, ‘You should have taken me by the lapels and tossed me onto Pennsylvania Avenue for what I have done.’ He said to me, ‘I forgive you.’”Gayle recently spoke with Timothy S. Goeglein, author of The Man in the Middle: An Inside Account of . . . . Continue Reading »
That was pretty good debate yesterday. I could nitpick (how much do you all think a war with Iran might cost -in American lives and American money - if you launch an attack on that country’s nuclear facilities?), but I won’t. Good for them (even Ron Paul.) It was . . . . Continue Reading »
1. God help me, but I’ve seen every Republican debate this season (but not every minute and I’ve missed a couple of the forums.) I’ve found all but the last fairly entertaining and somewhat informative. They’ve sure been pretty important when it comes to the . . . . Continue Reading »
In his 1995 Foreordained Failure: The Quest for a Constitutional Principle of Religious Freedom , Steven Smith challenges the notion that there is a single ideal of religious liberty and argues that any quest for such an ideal principle is doomed to failure. Religious freedom comes in various . . . . Continue Reading »
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