Articles Archive

Might our local faith communities support such cultivation of virtue, while also restoring what might again be a hub of parish social life?

“Red Dragonflies.” Steven Knepper offers a deeply informed consideration of Byung-Chul Han’s intellectual and spiritual trajectory. Knepper argues that Han’s emphasis on contemplation has much to offer: “The Church’s contemplative…

How are all these entries against despair? Insofar as metaphor is an act that creates meaning, it’s an act of hope: even intractable realities can be changed by placing them…

Students sometimes come to us in crisis, but always they come from a world filled with challenges and are with us only for a season. We could do far worse…

Preserving moral authority in schools would truly be something to cheer about.

Ashley Colby, founder of the Rizoma Field School, digs up inspiring true stories of resistance and restoration (with references to donkeys, elephants, and our 49th state).   Bill Kauffman, author and…

I guess it’s time to sweep. Again. And then again. But we can embrace the gentler side of housekeeping. Besides, if you leave be those spiders in the corners, they…

“Swift Going.” It’s hard to describe this essay by Peter Bast. But you should definitely read it: “I’m still amazed that my folks allowed me to see the Grateful Dead…

“I don’t roll on nobody,” I said, abysmal grammar and all, but a jail cell is no place for linguistic niceties. My voice was rough, as much scared as aggressive.…

Self-government by local communities, including some tiny confessional states, would be more consistent with ideals of diverse, self-governing communities.

Let’s have a localism without nostalgia, a practical but also a faithful localism. As localists let’s be committed to an accurate accounting of the checkered past that grounds our hope.

Brian Miller visits the porch to talk about his new book chronicling life on a Tennessee farm. Highlights 1:30       Bayou Bengal Volunteer farmer 5:45       A monastic text 11:15    Man…

It’s not perhaps that the world doesn’t need change, but that as anti-Machine author Paul Kingsnorth put it in these pages, “the first work is changing yourself.” We have to…

“Keep Your Money Close.” Jane Clark Scharl draws on the localist principle of subsidiarity to diagnose how online shopping leads to a scarcity of human interaction and to suggest some…

It’s said that seeing is believing. And even sleight-of-hand may be caught in the act if you watch closely enough. But things began to change with the use of computers…

If boarding school stories are exceptionally good at communicating certain universal themes despite the privileged setting, the lasting appeal of the setting offers some lessons, as well. The older we…

Adam Smith, a philosopher at the University of Dubuque, counterattacks the disenchanted War on Suffering.  FPR President Mark Mitchell goes biblical to bring down a heightened politics of insanity.  Brass…

Not only did the worst consequences of lockdowns occur in the Global South, but lockdowns were pushed on the South from the North, through well-known strongarm tactics of neocolonialism that…

After years of research, I have developed a three-stage teaching method that breaks new ground in pedagogical theory: Stage 1: Pay attention. Stage 2: Be astonished. Stage 3: Tell about…

“The Resurrection of the Bawdy.” J.C. Scharl ponders the strange, grotesque wisdom of Francois Rabelais: “there must be a reciprocal relationship between our high culture and our low. High culture…

Unaware, we can stand in a museum, in a temple of modernity that extracts life from all other temples. We can gaze into the vengeful gift of a god while…

Although it may seem counterintuitive, freedom is actually enhanced, not curtailed, when states have the right to experiment, subject to important federal constitutional limitations, with social and economic polices till…

Activism needs to begin by fearlessly staring down our own prejudices, by rooting out the injustices we allow. Once that is accomplished, we can turn to the outer world

Jeff Bilbro, FPR’s super-beaver EIC and Grove City College professor, looks to ancient mythology to assess modern technology and fiction of the future.  Cassandra Nelson of the University of Virginia’s…