Instability and the Noonday Devil
In a lecture on monastic stability delivered at the 2015 Front Porch Republic conference, Benedictine monk Gerard D’Souza noted that the idea of staying in...
Whose Nostalgia? Which Liberalism? Reflections on “Faith and Democracy in America”
Liberalism can be marked by the gospel and still be a political and cultural dead end. As Ivan Illich argued, corruptio optimi pessima.
We Need a lot More than Romance
When I came across John Hockenberry’s essay, “Exile,” in the October edition of Harper’s Magazine, I had never heard of him. I still know little...
Dirt Thick with Known Dead
While wandering in a used bookstore this summer, I picked up Donald Hall’s String Too Short to be Saved. I enjoyed Hall’s stories about...
Dear Eugene
One of my heroes of the faith is dead. Eugene Peterson experienced death, but certainly not its sting, as he uttered his final words,...
Absurd Wisdom: An Apology for Euthyphro
“Not many of you are wise, as men account wisdom…God chose those whom the world considers absurd to shame the wise.” (1 Cor. 1:26-27)
The...
The Local Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer stands at the fore of figures of the Christian past who loom large over political theology and religious activism today. The German...
Love in the Place of Almost Death
At the height of the political tension in King Lear, the corrupt usurpers of Lear’s throne are at the helm of Britain’s defense against...
Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris and the Problem of Bigness
In The Everlasting Man, a masterpiece of Christian apologetics, G. K. Chesterton opens Chapter 1 with something of a mocking hat tip to the...
The Theological Need for Mediation: Considerations from Alexis de Tocqueville
During a class I was teaching at our parish last fall, a woman pulled me aside afterwards to ask a question. The woman was...