The Stump

Chesterton and Belloc are not Enough

In preparing a new volume of essays titled Who Owns America? A New Declaration of Independence (1936), Allen Tate and Herbert Agar sought to extend...
Cotton postcard

Free Labor: The Liberation Theology of Capitalism

Capitalism as Theology In his seminal work, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Michael Novak provides his readers with a “Theology of Democratic Capitalism.”1 Now, some...

Catastrophe, Technology, Limits, and Localism

Charles C. Mann's The Wizard and the Prophet, published earlier this year, is a fabulous book. Not a perfect book; sometimes, in order to...

Social Isolation as the Fruit of Liberalism

Loneliness is on the rise. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death among young people. Our social media networks may number in...

A Flexible Disposition

In 2018, to discuss America’s future is to discuss uncertainty. It is true, of course, that talking about the future—a predictive game dependent on...

Summoning Jeremiah

The Call to Prophecy When we think of the great biblical prophets, we might be tempted to think of people concerned mainly with wholly religious...

Liberalism: A Joke, Literally

It’s a bit rich to pile on a “free-thinker” like Kanye West, who implores us to “lead with love,” when the best critics and...

Social Justice vs. Social Charity

The Pernicious Nature of Charity There is a pernicious force that operates in all societies, but especially in ours and especially in these sad days....

A Digital Relation to the Universe

Matt's essay concludes our discussion of "Localist Social Media." You can view all the essays in this symposium here.    When I first submitted my attempt...