Articles 356

When we stop trying to be everywhere at once, we have enough time for the meaningful things.

One side has dominated the story while the other has tried to dominate the politics. But separating culture and politics is a self-defeating strategy.

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] I've been a fan of Bill McKibben's writings for close to 30 years. That doesn't mean I've agreed with, or even enjoyed, everything this endlessly…

Put in a garden and watch it come to life.

The arguments that Deneen and Shatzer advance are really two sides of the same coin; as one interpreter of Marshall McLuhan put it, “We make our tools, and then our…

In such times, a centripetal lurch is what we desperately need.

The Varsity Blues parents didn’t really care if their children learned anything; they were concerned that they got their ticket to success stamped by the right institution.

What is culture? What hath attachment to do with culture? Why are front porches necessary for culture? Culture is something vibrant. Something living. Something that runs through the veins of…

We occupants of the Porch can profitably read Vodolazkin in light of our own concern to acknowledge human limitations and find ways to live well and more fully in our…

In selecting reading material, the average reader might not immediately reach for a book about Congress in the nineteenth century. That would be a mistake, as Joanne Freeman’s book The…

Hirschfeld’s assessment of what we as Christians should and should not accept in mainstream economics, informed by her training in both economics and theology, is thus a most welcome resource.

“Don’t take my gun, Nightlife!” Tol called, trying to sound not too much concerned, and yet unable to keep the tone of pleading entirely out of his voice. “I’m liable…

[T]he early scholastic notion of revelation was more dynamic than the modern one. Revelation does not occur, in the medieval understanding, once and for all in the static letters of…

As is so often the case when new technology promises to correct the errors of human fallibility, robo-umps could be bad for everyone involved.

Wendell Berry, while still writing more than most of us, is squarely in the awards and laurels stage of his earthly journey. Who will continue the call for sanity and…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A week ago I was able to organize a small group of friends to attend a fine, relatively intimate event at Sterling College, a small…

In Canto XXX of the Inferno, Dante becomes fascinated with an argument between Sinon the Greek and Master Adamo, both of them condemned for sowing discord. Virgil, his guide through…

In 2017 I moved back home to Livingston County after serving seven years in the United States Marine Corps. A father, a veteran, and a millennial, I spent the last…

Local communities, not the federal government, should hold the true authority over one’s life, especially in matters of taxation.

The mighty cosmos of the modern economic order determines, with overwhelming coercion, the style of life not only of those directly involved in business but of every individual who is born into…

We know now that much of the Notre Dame Cathedral survived and that it will be rebuilt. But while the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral burned, Americans mourned. They…

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god— . . . Unhonoured, unpropitiated By worshippers of the machine, but waiting,…

Earlier this year, headlines indicated that an unprecedented number of Americans are more than 90 days behind on their car loan payments. Nearly all economists agree that 7 million Americans defaulting…

Confucius deserves a place of honor on the Front Porch because he was History’s keenest observer of the traditions and rituals that make life civilized. He lived in a time…