Front Porch Republic

A folklife is made up of the food and craft, the local stories, songs, remedies and rumors—relationships that define a place as much as the geology and ecology do.

True charity draws all people, each one gifted and broken, into an interdependent community.

From here in my long-time Midwestern location, these lots are unshakeable reminders of a place in Texas where a shameful darkness once surrounded a part of my childhood.

Here’s the irony: a growing number of conservatives realize that it will require the assistance of the State to correct many of the problems that have been created by the State that was motivated by progressive commitments against the more…

“The Great Land Robbery.” In the Atlantic, Vann R. Newkirk II narrates a tragic story about black land ownership in the Mississippi Delta. Between racist lending practices, global commodity markets, and, more recently, corporate purchasers, black landowners are losing ground:…

If the institutions that oversee our slow twelve-to-eighteen-year process of education are called our alma-mater (nourishing mother), why can’t the dirt-filled, dung-laden places that convey agrarian lessons taught over 20 years be our nourishing father (alma-pater)?

In my first essay here at Front Porch Republic, I wrote about the idea that creation-friendly agriculture is not about going back to old fashioned ways, but is actually quite cutting edge. This is especially the case since what we…

Most of my reading time this week went to poring over proofs for the first issue of the FPR print journal. We should have copies fresh from the press at the Louisville conference, and if you won’t be able to…

Much of the American reading public would be as surprised to find that there was once an environmentalist Right as they would be to find that there was once a pro-life Left. So successfully have the dominant representatives of the…

Cultivate. Give order. Name. Attend. Reveal. Craft a parable. Homestead. Welcome. In Placemaking and the Arts: Cultivating the Christian Life (IVP Academic, 2018), Jennifer Allen Craft offers these paradigms and more for understanding how the visual arts can train us…

“Going Home with Wendell Berry.” Amanda Petrusich corresponded with Berry and then spent two days in Port Royal continuing their conversation. The result is a rich and wise conversation in the New Yorker. Plough Quarterly has a new issue that is well…

For our elites, democratic values and grand political projects go hand in hand.  Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg discussed the importance of democracy in adjudicating social tradeoffs.  Zuckerberg has also recently called for “a more active role for governments and regulators” in overseeing…