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Between Loving and Labeling

I want to love, again. Youth cannot be reclaimed, and I would not want to, but increasingly I feel a need—a calling, perhaps—to find a way to reach back and recapture one aspect of my youth: a willingness to be a little naive, to take people as they are, rather than as I believe I can classify them. It was how I lived before I became very engaged with politics and religion and chose labeling over loving . . . . Continue Reading »

Purify Her Uncleanness

These words come from the Orthodox Christian childbearing rites contained in the liturgical handbook, the Great Book of Needs. The first few lines are from “Prayers on the First Day after a Woman has Given Birth to a Child,” or the “First Day” prayers, which are prayed by a priest at a new mother’s bedside soon after birth. The last few lines are from “Prayers for a Woman on the Fortieth Day of Childbirth,” or the “Churching” prayers, which are said when a woman first returns to church with her newborn… . Continue Reading »

Martinis and Taxes

How do we deal with unsustainable spending and borrowing? The formula is simple: less spending”or more accurately less rapid increases in spending”and more revenue. But can we generate more revenue without suppressing economic growth, which is after all what will allow us to pay for government over the long term? … Continue Reading »

Abortion’s Backdoor Maneuver at the U.N.

One of the great pro-life victories internationally over the past twenty years has been the defeat of the attempt to make abortion a universally recognized right through U.N. documents. Abortion is not mentioned in a single hard-law treaty and therefore has not risen to the legal level of a “human right.” … Continue Reading »

The Christian Origins of Islam

Near the bottom of the pit of hell, Dante encounters a man walking with his torso split from chin to groin, his guts and other organs spilling out. “See how I tear myself!” the man shrieks. “See how Mahomet is deformed and torn!” For us, the scene is not only gruesome but surprising, for Dante is not in a circle of false religion but in a circle reserved for those who tear the body of Christ. Like many medieval Christians, Dante views Islam less as a rival religion than as a schismatic form of Christianity… . Continue Reading »

Confessions of a Protestant Christmas Tree Amateur

Two years ago, my wife and I had the good fortune of acquiring a small place in the Appalachians, just south of the Virginia border. This was a blessing and one of those rare things in life that was almost entirely unexpected. This part of the Appalachians is Christmas tree country, and our 1920s home came with a plot of three hundred Fraser firs and the first fertile land we had had in five years (not counting a flowerbed in Connecticut that we had to leave before the spring, though we were told it did very well). We were chomping at the bit, as it were, to plow, plant, weed, tend, and trim every green thing on our humble two acres… . Continue Reading »

Yes, Virginia, There Was A Santa Claus

Nicholas, bishop of Myra and a saint in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, was born in the third century and died in the fourth. There, I said it. That he ever lived at all was questioned by some historians in the twentieth century. In due time, scholarly skepticism about St. Nicholas as a historical figure gave birth to the popular belief that he had been proven fictional, like Santa Claus… . Continue Reading »

Power Gained, Argument Weakened for Same-Sex Marriage

The naive reader of the U.S. Constitution might see the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (“nor shall any State … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”), and presume that these words are themselves to be applied equally to all persons, whatever their circumstances. If the modern Supreme Court is to be followed as our authoritative guide, however, that presumption would be incorrect. There are, one might say, three different equal protection clauses. And the group to which one belongs will determine which of them is put to use… . Continue Reading »

Congressional Gridlock is Good

The complaints and worry and agonizing anxiousness about the fiscal cliff and Washington gridlock have an alarming air of coming apocalypse. Phrases wafting around include but are not limited to “divided dysfunctional government,” “the worst Congress ever,” and “the grip of partisan gridlock.” The mixed election results”call them a political mulligan”have, many argue, set us up for more of the same horrible things we have endured since the 2010 congressional elections … Continue Reading »

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