“The most salient demographic change from 2008 to 2012 was the drop in white voters” argues election observer Sean Trende. To get an idea of what happened to these voters”working-class, rural, and living in the northern part of the country”it is helpful to look to Pennsylvania’s twelfth congressional district… . Continue Reading »
2013 marks the centenary of the birth of one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, Thomas F. Torrance, an orthodox, ecumenical, and pastoral theologian. Although he held many academic and ecclesial credentials . . . he considered his primary calling to be a minister of the Gospel and an evangelist to theologians. … Continue Reading »
The “Edict of Milan,” whose milleseptuacentennial (so to speak) is being marked this year, wasn’t an edict and wasn’t issued at Milan. Still, its enormous impact on the history of the Church and the West is well worth pondering on this 1,700th anniversary. In his magisterial study, The First Thousand Years, Robert Louis Wilken sets the historical record straight … Continue Reading »
As I write, YouTube reports almost 50 million views of the music video for “Same Love” by the hip hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, a single recorded to support same-sex marriage in Washington state. While not remotely approaching the 345 million views of their waggish “Thrift Shop” video, “Same Love” reached number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this month and tops the charts Down Under… . Continue Reading »
In the opening line of James Joyce’s Ulysses, stately, plump Buck Mulligan bears “a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.” Holding the bowl aloft he declares, “Introibo ad altare Dei.” Mulligan, in this symbolic action, expresses Joyce’s critique of Christianity: a combination of sadism, the razor, and narcissism, the mirror… . Continue Reading »
The “Night of the Big Wind” is still the stuff of folklore in Ireland. On January 6, 1839, an unexpected hurricane slammed into the Emerald Isle from the North Atlantic, decimating neighborhoods from County Mayo to Dublin and becoming the worst storm ever recorded in Irish history. Waves were said to have crashed over Ireland’s towering Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. … Continue Reading »
Visually stunning and gripping to the last frame, Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby is a whirlwind ride into the Roaring Twenties, complete with a pulsating sound track and 3-D imagery. But its greatest strength is also its biggest weakness: Luhrmann is so intent on dazzling viewers with his frenetic, over-the-top directing style that the film constantly threatens to overshadow, if not injure, the delicacy and profundity of Fitzgerald’s exquisite novel… . Continue Reading »
Some years ago, I read Alan Medinger’s book Growth into Manhood, written for Christians with unwanted same-sex attractions. Medinger, a giant in ex-gay circles, was the first Executive Director of Exodus International, the ex-gay umbrella group that has grown to almost three hundred ministries in eighteen countries, but announced it was closing operations this week with a letter of apology to the LGBT community widely circulated on the internet… . Continue Reading »
On Wednesday, the Academy of Arts and Sciences published its report on the state and value of the humanities and social sciences. The “Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences,” as it is called, was formed two years ago in response to Congress’s request to know how “to maintain national excellence in humanities and social scientific scholarship and education … Continue Reading »
My youngest son and I just finished a road trip. We revved up our overloaded Toyota Camry in Idaho, stopped in Sheridan, Sioux Falls, Chicago, Columbus, and Pittsburgh, and continued across Pennsylvania to New York City before taking a sharp right to Philadelphia and Washington on our way to Birmingham. Sixteen states, eight hotels, and over 3,800 miles in two weeks, and only one lost piece of electronics… . Continue Reading »
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