In 1951, security forces in communist Czechoslovakia arrested Silvester Krčméry—and as they were taking him away, he burst out laughing. The young physician knew what he was about to face: years behind bars, shattering physical and mental torture, the loss of his professional career. Yet . . . . Continue Reading »
No writer understood loneliness better than Chekhov. People long for understanding, and try to confide their feelings, but more often than not, others are too self-absorbed to care. In Chekhov’s plays, unlike those of his predecessors, characters speak past each other. Often enough, they talk in . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the disappointing features of our controversies about biblical translations, the readings in the lectionary, the composition of our hymnals, sacred art in our churches, and gestures and actions in our liturgies, is that people in charge of things seem to be poorly versed in the humanities. . . . . Continue Reading »
When I first read Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind more than thirty years ago, amid the relentless polemic I was struck by one passage: his attack on Louis Armstrong’s version of “Mack the Knife,” a song I knew and enjoyed, albeit in the far superior version by Bobby . . . . Continue Reading »
A year before the end of his long life (1895–1998), the German author Ernst Jünger converted to Catholicism, a late change on a tumultuous path of searching and adventures that were far from exclusively spiritual. Born into a Protestant family, he attended conventional boarding schools, but at . . . . Continue Reading »
Beginning with his essay “The Flight 93 Election,” published by the Claremont Review of Books in September 2016, Michael Anton has become famous—and infamous—as the foremost intellectual defender of the current president. One can read his new book, The Stakes: America . . . . Continue Reading »
The words “piety” and “pious” have an archaic ring; moderns find them hard to use without irony or a sneer. Pejorative senses of the words predominate, such as those the Oxford English Dictionary gives for “piety” (“a sanctimonious statement, a commonplace”) and for . . . . Continue Reading »
How should a Christian steward his vote? Continue Reading »
Religious prejudice and discrimination have no place in American law—except, apparently, if they are administrative. Continue Reading »
The most important economic policy difference between Trump and Biden concerns the COVID-19 “lockdowns.” Continue Reading »
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