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Articles Archive

Searching for The Thing: A Review of The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever

While she relates the years of kaleidoscopic confusion, she provides waypoints to keep the reader grounded: “This is where we are, and this is where we’re going.”

Syncretism, Saints, and Childhood

“Against Syncretism, For Christians Building Like Christians.” Jake Meador provides a good summary of and response to Paul Kingsnorth’s recent lecture: “Bucer's measure of judging a Christian society was not…

Two Cheers for E-Bikes

Automobiles shield you from the outside world, its sounds, its colors. But on my bike, I encounter my environment directly.
November 8, 2024

The Middle Ground of Wit and Insult, Considered Together With Their Limits

In other words, knowledge and reason are no match for our gargantuan vices. The giants passion and pride cannot be held at bay by the ignorance that prevails in public…
Jason Peters
November 7, 2024

Else Lasker-Schüler’s Grief

Her work is certainly redolent of sorrow and, as she describes it, the eternity that dwells within her. But her words also carry hope and surprising faith that she will…

Nadya Williams and The Good News

Williams reminds us of a lesson that we should have already learned good and hard, namely that rejection of Christianity does not result in blissful liberation and self-expression.
November 5, 2024

Step Off the Assembly Line and Take Up the Work of Loving Care: A Review of Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic

So whatever value motherhood gets assigned on earth, it’s pretty clear what position it holds on high. You may feel invisible here, but you certainly aren’t in Heaven.

Dinosaurs, Screens, and Symbols

“Dinner with Dinosaurs.” In a wide-ranging and probing essay, Lauren Spohn considers what kind of narrative we need to motivate human action and guide our technological and cultural project: “It’s…

On Abortion, Uncompromising Values, and the Value of Compromise

Perhaps one day moral clarity on this issue will be found or the values of the American people will align more neatly. Until that day arrives, if ever it does,…
November 1, 2024

Figures of Death and Deathlessness  

But our culture’s celebration of Halloween suggests that we know yet more. We sense not only that we are dust and will return to it; we also sense that life…
October 31, 2024

Voting for a President Won’t Save the Republic

A democracy is not kept by filling in a ballot bubble once every four years. It’s kept by responsibly and virtuously exercising our freedoms in our homes, communities, and institutions…
Jeffrey Bilbro
October 30, 2024

A Homeward Calling: Review of Tony Woodlief’s We Shall Not All Sleep

One of the novel’s achievements is the way that it unfolds this centuries-long story with both clarity and subtlety, establishing a clear feel for right and wrong while casting no…

The Miraculous Phenomenon of Post-Hurricane Weather

When Christ died on the cross, the disciples did not know he was going to rise again. But for Christians today, we see the full picture, and these are not…

Boethius, History, and Charm

“Love Letter to America.” A.M. Hickman takes a hard look at America’s many dysfunctions: “Then the realization sinks in like news of a dear old friend’s death: There beneath the…

Boarding House at the End of the World

Zoning laws, housing codes, and a culture marked by suspicion and antisociality make it difficult to revive the boarding house, a living arrangement that once applied to nearly half of…

The White Whale and the Problem of Grasping

Perhaps that’s the lesson at the heart of both The Master and His Emissary and Moby-Dick: when we adopt a utilitarian posture of domination over the world, we misapprehend it.

Road Kill

I had to understand life and nature not as something to be mastered, but as gifts afforded to me to steward by a God abundant in goodness.

Falling is Not Failure, and Getting up is Not the Point

Life knocks us down. It is the price of this world, however much we may kid ourselves otherwise. Our falls become part of us.

Jeff Bilbro’s Convivial Quest

The editor-in-chief of the FPR website discusses the recent conference in Grand Rapids and his latest book, Words for Conviviality.  Highlights Resources Jeff's bio and buy the book (and some…

The Final Word was Right

If there ever comes a true accounting of the costs we’re racking up for making, using, and discarding our mobile (de)vices, we will be obliged to admit that there has…
Jason Peters
October 21, 2024

Ducks, Hitler, and Gridlock

“The Place of Tides by James Rebanks Review—Ducking Out of a Midlife Crisis.” Helen Davies praises Rebanks’s “quietly profound book. It is a story about a still-essential way of living…

2025 Front Porch Republic Student Essay Contest

We're announcing a student essay contest! If you're a student, consider submitting an essay, and if you know any students, encourage them to apply. Students are invited to respond either…
Jeffrey Bilbro
October 18, 2024

Civility and Civic Virtue

We might at least keep in mind the importance of proximity and presence and real encounters of flesh and blood. For the messy business of politics let us have Chesterton’s…
Jason Peters
October 18, 2024

Wheeler Catlett’s Love Beyond Organization in Wendell Berry’s “Fidelity”

Organized community events bring people together and are an integral part of forging strong communal bonds in a place. Like the law, they serve a purpose in a community’s ecosystem…
October 17, 2024