On Dying Where You’re Planted: The Rooted Pastor
Manchester, CT
I am grudgingly accepting that you don’t choose the place; the place chooses you.
I’ve moved around a lot during my time on the planet,...
History as Manifesto
Dillon, MT
Having a personal and professional interest in what people think history is for, I read The History Manifesto with great interest. Jo Guldi...
Freedom and Four-Year Olds
Holland, MI
In public policy, few things are ever entirely right or wrong. Like economics, we are often dealing with trade-offs. Ignoring the trade-offs blinds...
Wendell Berry Opts Out of the ‘Culture of Violence’
Our Only World: Ten Essays. By Wendell Berry. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2015.
In January of 2012, Wendell Berry delivered a speech at Georgetown College that explained...
Witchcraft in Church? Against Glamorous Worship
Recently, our local Trappist Monastery, the Abbey of the Genesee, unveiled a renovation of the sanctuary of the Abbey church. To the shock of some...
Kids These Days: Why We Shouldn’t Worry if They Don’t Leave...
A popular version of the undying nostalgia for a golden era gone by is the view that this era was a time when men...
Whatever Happened to Communitarianism?
Twenty years ago, the concept and label "communitarianism" was riding high, or at least as high as any broadly applicable yet intellectually coherent ideological...
Christopher Lasch and the Lasting Dilemma of Localism
This past weekend, at the annual Front Porch Republic gathering (this year held at SUNY-Geneseo), three scholars reflected upon the writings of the historian...
Monastic Stability: In One Place with God and Others
Some time ago I was asked if I would be willing to participate in a forum on localism. I hesitated. I did not even...