Over the years some have asked me why, as an evangelical writer, I so infrequently invoke the name of Jesus. My usual glib response is that I prefer not to name-drop just because I’m on a first-name basis with the Creator of the universe. But the truth is, I’ve never felt that being an evangelical required me to stuff my essays with scripture references or end my articles with an altar call. … Continue Reading »
Several weeks ago, the Vatican announced that it would not grant the necessary approval for Lesley-Anne Knight’s second, four-year term as secretary general of Caritas International, a global network of 165 Catholic agencies working primarily in the Third World on development and health care issues… . Continue Reading »
Recently my email yielded a straightforward De profundis from a young reader pleading for reassurances; he needed to know that embracing Catholicism did not require the shutting down of his intellect or the suspension of reason. Relating what he had encountered among the comboxes at a number of Catholic websites, he was left wondering if Catholicism inhibited one’s ability to think for oneself… . Continue Reading »
The other day I had one of those discussions people who home school their children sometimes have, when someone asks about your children, which in America always includes where they go to school. We home school our two youngest, and have since kindergarten, with the exception of two years early on at our parochial school. The response varies to the news that you do something still considered, even by some conservative Christians, odd, eccentric, and possibly subversive… . Continue Reading »
Two weeks ago, I wrote a column, “A Modest Proposal,” lamenting the Supreme Court’s Westboro Baptist Church decision, and making what seemed to me the obvious observation that it is a philosophical and historical confusion to imagine that the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech ever needed to be interpreted in so barbarically libertarian a fashion. Not that everyone would see it as obvious… . Continue Reading »
A polemic documentary film centered on a demonized but doggedly courageous climate change crusader and his statistics-laden slide show—Sound familiar? While Cool It and its globetrotting subject, Bjorn Lomborg, author of the identically titled book upon which the film is based, offer the flattery of imitation, it quickly becomes clear this is not An Inconvenient Truth. Instead, the film positions itself as the rational middle-way between global warming denialism and Al Gore-styled catastrophism. In this it largely succeeds. Whether the middle way is the right way is another question… . . Continue Reading »
Congress doesn’t get much respect. It never has. At the dawn of our republic John Adams famously muttered: “In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.” A century after Adams, citizens resonated (and still do) to Mark Twain’s assertion: “Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can.” … Continue Reading »
“Be assured my young friend, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation,” Adam Smith wrote to a distraught friend after the battle of Saratoga (1777). Smith’s assurance begs a large question: Just how much ruin is there in a nation? History’s stores contain food for thought. For those seeking a classic case of precipitate unraveling, it would be difficult to better the example of Spain under Philip IV (1621“1665) … Continue Reading »
Each week my neighbors and I engage in a curious ethical ritual. On Wednesday morning before we leave for work we set outside our doors an artifact that expresses our obligation to the welfare of future generations. We call these objects recycling bins. Recycling is one example of an action that we take in the present to benefit a group in the future. … Continue Reading »
Judging by the impassioned commentary from some Catholic quarters during recent confrontations between unionized public-sector workers and state governments, you’d think we were back in 1919, with the Church defending the rights of wage slaves laboring in sweat shops under draconian working conditions… . Continue Reading »
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