Articles Archive

To find these deeper wells of silence, however, we must seek them out, whether in the woods or the deserts of our own shut doors.

These questions would cause little debate or consternation without the importance of place tethering them. And, despite the erasure of communitarian mindsets and regional identity, place still matters.

Look at what has sometimes happened to Christian architecture in America, for example; tragic declines in quality are matched by the inability of people to even notice how bad it…

While it is impossible to be sure what the ultimate cultural importance of this movie will be, I do think Walsh has hit a nerve.

“In Defiance of All Powers.” Peter Mommsen introduces Plough’s new issue on Freedom. It looks quite promising, but my physical copy hasn’t arrived yet, so I’m exercising restraint: “as my…

What the Amish understand perhaps more than we do is the necessity of maintaining and protecting domains of embodied human agency in our lives.

Brian Miller (author of Kayaking with Lambs) is hosting a BBQ at his farm outside Philadelphia, TN with some Doomer Optimism friends. They'll be gathering Sept. 28 from 6-10. Guests…

Contemplating this turn of events in our politics reminds me that we human beings have a strong desire for tidy coherence. Sometimes this desire can be a kind of sickness.

Pastoral ministry in prison can change lives, but it doesn’t magically erase the pain of incarceration.

The AEI scholar and author of American Covenant joins John to talk about a document that he believes could unify we the people, again.  Highlights 1:30       Second home 8:15       The…

For the task of understanding the past demands honesty, humility, and respect for all aspects of human nature, from the material to the intellectual and volitional and—above all—the spiritual.

Language is primarily a relational (rather than a representational) technology. Words articulate our relationships to God, other humans, our environment, and even ourselves.

“How a Vermont Cheesemaker Helps Local Farms Thrive.” The essay up on FPR’s front page right now by Lenny Wells describes some possibilities for small farmers to find a “seam”…

There are much easier ways to make money than farming. The primary goal of a good farmer is to find success in caring for one’s land, community, and family.

Society needs its most talented individuals to not just dive into the fray of politics and policy but to build the institutions that shape culture.

Nevertheless, if someone of a conservative disposition wishes to produce excellent art that, in a certain sense, supports conservatism, the best thing they can do is to focus simply on…

Chris Arnade writes the Substack ‘Chris Arnade Walks the World,’ which chronicle his wanderings as he literally walks and walks and walks all over the world. He is the author…

Hence this book is something special: a new set of Christian fables on natural law that do more than teach simple morals or seek to modify children’s behavior.

A machine can read books out loud to the baby. A machine can rock the baby to sleep. Smart devices and apps can do these and many other things. But…

“Twelve Months to Fall Back in Love with America.” Anarchist, hobo, Coast Guardsman, Catholic, Front Porch Republic conference-goer, and now newlywed A.M. Hickman is traveling America with his wife Keturah…

Rudyard Kipling’s 1902 Just So Stories are a delightful anomaly—they feel like folk tales but were largely invented by Kipling himself as bedtime stories for his eldest daughter, Josephine.

America is known for its English-Protestant roots, for the pilgrims who settled the Eastern seaboard and the Anglos who descended from them. But America has a French-Catholic history, too, and…

As she engages ultimate questions about human life, Little models the pursuit of virtue and the concomitant wrestling with vice involved in this pursuit.

Despite Trump’s own divisive rhetoric, he makes rural Americans feel heard in ways neither majority party has in decades. Any politician or scholar who actually wants to address the root…