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Little Rock and the Terrors of Social Life

To a small child in 1957 Brooklyn, Little Rock was a faraway place. The only thing I knew about it was that Governor Faubus was blocking the Supreme Court mandate to integrate the public schools. In the invincible innocence of childhood, I took for granted President Eisenhower’s decision to call . . . . Continue Reading »

The Education of a Pro-Life Clergyman

We used to walk to church together, Susan and I, she a junior at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, I a freshman. It was a couple of miles down to the Episcopal church, a couple of miles back—our conversations on these walks were how we got to know each other. I remember her saying, as we . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

Religious Freedom Matthew Schmitz is right that we should focus less on the need for a universal tolerance and more on what sort of vision of the good life ought to be pursued among the tolerated (“Limits of Religious Freedom,” March). But my reason for believing this is near opposite to . . . . Continue Reading »

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 »

COVID-19: 
New York Diary

Friday, March 20. A light fog hangs in the air in the early morning as I walk uptown to see what’s going on at the big hospitals a few blocks north of my neighborhood. The magnolias, crabapple trees, and forsythias are in splendid bloom on the spacious grounds of Rockefeller University, next to . . . . Continue Reading »

American Scream

In June 2015, Donald Trump rode down a golden escalator and declared, “The American Dream is dead.” Now, nearly five years on, Michael Strain has responded with The American Dream Is Not Dead (But Populism Could Kill It). Touché. Strain, the director of economic policy studies at the . . . . Continue Reading »

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