Place. Limits. Liberty.
Support FPR’s print journal and selection of books.

Articles 355

Limitless Wishing and its Discontents

Perhaps we need nothing more and nothing less than a continual return to the Gospel, via all the means already available to us. We could start with St. Paul’s reminder…

For Nancy French-ism

This is the story of a bruised soul touched by grace but still frustrated by the passivity that others continue to show in response to the unspeakable.

Will No One Rid Me Of These Meddlesome -Isms: Thinking and Rethinking Liberalism

Human liberty is indeed a good. But liberty is the freedom to choose well, not just freedom from restraints.
April 24, 2024

Shakespeare’s Grief

After a pandemic took his son, the Bard would never be the same

The Excellence (and Implications) of Escaping the Housing Trap

All of this only touches the surface of Escaping the Housing Trap’s arguments and only begins the many productive discussions that should—and hopefully will!—follow in its wake. Buy and read…

Allegories of Pruning: Cutting for Growth

Pruning is difficult because we are forced to make a conscious decision to remove something that has been part of a growing plant. But these cuts are necessary and even…
April 19, 2024

That Brutal, Ferocious Thing: Watching Civil War

I must say that I did not want to write this review. I walked into the theatre with high hopes for Mr. Garland’s Civil War. I was hoping it would…
April 18, 2024

Laughter is Courageous: A Review of Empire Between the Lines

As such, these papers provide the means for understanding how imperial concerns shaped the way Entente soldiers perceived themselves and the war. But even more importantly to my mind, the…

What’s In Your Garage?

No home but the Garden was there originally for man, once upon a very long time ago. No garage either was part of life before expulsion from Eden.

Travels in Exotic Nebraska: A Review of American Harvest

The book is at its best when it embraces a more generous spirit. If one wishes to learn about traveling grain harvesters and to follow a literary description of the…

President Biden and the Lost Cause

In Lost Cause debates, President Biden should be wary of casting the first stone: his own history demonstrates the complicated relationship the country has with its deadliest war and the…

Thinking About Wendell Berry’s Leftist Lament (and More)

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wendell Berry’s sprawling, uneven, brilliant, and sometimes frustrating The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice will likely not, I think, be…

Gadfly Graffiti

In a funk no more, I was prepared to meet the smile of my daughters with a genuine smile of my own as they came out of practice. The graffiti…

Facing Loss with Job and Faust

“Adonai has compassion,” sang the psalmist, “for he understands how we are made, he remembers that we are dust.” Perhaps in our dust of grief, we see clearly for the…
April 8, 2024

Is a Radioactive Trash Mountain Coming to Town?

Rather than seeking the elusive mirage of purity, we ought to undertake the contested work of breaking the body of creation respectfully and responsibly. As Nobel demonstrates, the oil industry…
Jeffrey Bilbro
April 5, 2024

Public Enemy #1?: Smartphones and a Generation at Risk

Haidt’s book is a tour de force. I can give it no higher praise than to say I wish we could put this book in the hands of every parent,…

“I Wouldn’t Take Nothing for It”: An Appreciation of Love for the Land

“Heeding lessons from farmers who persist in place, we can embrace these virtues. Rather than give up or get out, we can dig in. Rather than go big, we can…

Living With Risk: Vipers or Bleach?

I do not know where the future will take us. I’m not going to try and escape the risks in modern society, but I’m also not going to ignore them.…

A Really Real God

If an invisible world is a reality, then a creator is probable, as the deists suggest, and perhaps even plausible. God may well be really real, just as I had…
March 29, 2024

Staring Into The Abyss

Man must face the reality of his own existence and his ultimate fate. To stare into the abyss of eternity, to examine and grasp the meaning of life, is a…
March 28, 2024

The Work of Moss-Gathering

“By their fruits you will recognize them,” Jesus tells his disciples. If what appears is bad or worthless, you’ll have been made aware of what was there all along, incipient.…
March 27, 2024

Family Time with Timothy Carney

Timothy Carney, an AEI senior fellow and the author of Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be, talks about the village it…

Waging Culture Wars Justly

To fight a culture war justly is to be confident that your arguments have a reasonable chance of success; but this means that to fight justly is not only about…
March 25, 2024

Frog and Toad Might Just Be Friends…and That’s Okay

If we fail to recognize friendship for what it is, and for the role it plays in the maturation process of children and young adults, we lose out on a…