Some months after my son-in-law, Rob Susil, died, a longtime friend asked me, in a gentle but point-blank way, “Are you still fighting God?” The only honest response was, “Yes.” At which my friend said, simply, “You’re not going to win, you know . . .” Continue Reading »
A Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church has been scheduled for 2016. In March of 2014, the leaders of all the autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Churches met in Istanbul, the sacred see of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which historically (since at least the fifth century) coordinates such . . . . Continue Reading »
Perhaps the most heatedly denounced work of a distinguished scholar is Harry Jaffa’s occasional writing on homosexuality. The passions surrounding the issue distort understanding of these essays, but his purpose in them follows that of the rest of his mature corpus—the recovery of natural right and the great intertwined questions of reason and revelation. Jaffa’s writings on the topic need to be approached from the moral-political perspective from which they were intended. Continue Reading »
If the Church is going to face the challenges of this new century, she will have to face them as a united Church. Nothing has so weakened our witness as our tragic divisions. Nothing has made the Gospel so implausible, if not preposterous. Division has deprived us of the weapons we need for the spiritual battles that are on the horizon. Continue Reading »
Earlier this month, a website called Veterans News Now (VNN), removed James M. Wall from its editorial board, where he was listed as “associate editor” and moved his name to a list of the site’s “frequently featured writers.”
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We just had a revolution—a polite one. Continue Reading »
When I started graduate school in English in the early 90s, I thought that a certificate in Women’s Studies would widen my training and help my career. My university happened to have a famous professor in the field, a pioneer in academic feminism who had created one of the first graduate degree programs in Women’s Studies. A tough, learned woman with exacting standards, she did not suffer fools or histrionic students lightly. She was also a conservative. Continue Reading »
The annual “Status of Global Christianity” survey published by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research is a cornucopia of numbers: Some are encouraging; others are discouraging; many of them are important for grasping the nature of this particular moment in Christian history. Continue Reading »
Mary Ann Glendon wrote nearly a quarter century ago that “a new form of rights talk has come into being” in contemporary America, in which rights are “presented as absolute, individual, and independent of any necessary relation to our responsibilities. Continue Reading »
Someone asked me recently, now that I am retired from administrative leadership, if I plan to write my autobiography. My answer was a definite “No!” Narrating the details of my seventy-plus year pilgrimage would bore me almost as much as it would bore others. I do, however, remember a few events that might be interesting enough for public airing. One of them is the time that I turned down an invitation to appear in Penthouse magazine. Continue Reading »
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