One would have thought that no Republican would be able to drive pundits toward the edge of sanity as deftly as George W. Bush used to, but Sarah Palin has surpassed him. She is as hated by the Left as viscerally as Bill and Hillary were by the Right. She’s the latest in a string of conservative targets: Reagan, Bush, now Palin”all cast successively as rightwing bumpkins du jour… . Continue Reading »
In one of my columns last January, I mentioned that there had been no practicing pagans in my family since the death of my great uncle Aloysius Bentley (1895-1987), who liked to welcome in the New Year by sacrificing a goat or a pair of woodcocks to Janus and Dionysus on the small marble altar he kept in his garden (carved for him by a sculptor who specialized in funerary monuments)… . Continue Reading »
It was 1985 and I was chatting with the pastor of Lutheran congregation located on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The congregation he served had a long and once distinguished history but neighborhood change, Lutherans dying off with no replacements, and other factors had brought about a long, sad decline in the fortunes of both neighborhood and church. I was there to interview on becoming his successor. I had four children to that point, all towheaded. He called them “street bait.” That dampened things a bit… . Continue Reading »
Linguistic battles are difficult when the words are obviously different (gender vs. sex, pro-life vs. anti-abortion, etc.). They are much harder when the word stays the same, but the meaning changes. The same-sex marriage movement reveals that “marriage” has already undergone a meaning shift. Recognizing”and addressing”the character of that shift has to be a major part of how we defend marriage today… . Continue Reading »
There is one excellent reason, as Dorothy Sayers might say, why the veriest amateur may feel entitled to have an opinion about influence. For if we are not all professional influencers, we have all, at some time or another, been influenced. I have certainly been more influenced than influential. But over the years I have also become something of a student of influence, seeking to learn what I can about how to become more effective at being effectual. … Continue Reading »
In a recent article, Yale professor David Gelernter noted that modern America had “two extraordinary accomplishments: victory in the Cold War and the all-but-eradication of race prejudice in a single generation … .” The back story of the latter is worth pondering around Independence Day. When I was growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, everything and everyone around me was segregated. Five years before I was born, local idiots vociferously insulted Jackie Robinson when he came to town with the Montreal Royals, prior to his debut in Brooklyn… . Continue Reading »
Recently I came across two items which superficially would seem to have nothing at all to do with each other. The first was an advertisement: a religious sister was promoting a women’s retreat about “finding oneself” and “coming to a place of ‘centered’ peace.” Highlighted within the ad was a sort of inverted pyramid using decreasing-sized fonts to illustrate exactly how Sister intended to lead these women back to themselves, and center their peace … Continue Reading »
A young son in Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life asks his mother, “Tell us a story from before we can remember.” Malick begins his story even earlier by telling the story from before we can remember. With visually arresting imagery and a mesmerizing musical score, a lengthy opening sequence traces the history of the universe, from initial explosion and expansion through the formation of galaxies and planets to the formation of earth and the development of life on what the philosopher Charles DeKonnick calls a “poor little planet born of a catastrophe.” … Continue Reading »
G. K. Chesterton said famously that America is “a nation with the soul of a church.” And he believed the Declaration of Independence formed the substance of our national soul. But as we celebrate this Fourth of July, we need to recognize that some of the deepest problems in our public life can be traced to our collective neglect of America’s great founding document. The Declaration establishes our common self-identity as Americans… . Continue Reading »
Twelve years have passed, but very few Coloradans have forgotten the name of Columbine High School. I spent the days after the April 20, 1999, Columbine school massacre with my brother priests, burying the dead, visiting the families of victims and trying to make sense of the violence to the wider community… . Continue Reading »
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