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Front Porch Republic

Nature in Oklahoma

In Oklahoma, the nature many of us live so close to is a different thing from the concept of “nature” we have internalized.
June 9, 2025

What is a Good Life?

A happy life is not something out there in the future. It’s not something you make, even.
June 7, 2025

On the Necessity of DEI for Restoring Trust in Higher Ed

I can’t help but notice that DEI might be the perfect solution to the politicization of the academy in general, and of the humanities and social sciences in particular.
June 6, 2025

A Formidable Formative Institution – The Fair Marches On

You have to cut through the glitzy, loud elements—the carnival rides and the tractor pulls and the cotton candy—to see the heart of the fair...
June 5, 2025

News, Notes, & Podcasts

Jeffrey Bilbro
Newsletter Editor:
Jeffrey Bilbro
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Thinking, Baseball, and Eggs

“Have Humans Passed Peak Brain Power?” John Burn-Murdoch points to several indicators that humans across the world are simply thinking and understanding less now than happened ten years ago. The…
March 22, 2025

Journalism, Fractures, and Trash

Save the date for our fall FPR conference at Baylor! “The Tacit Dimension of Shop Class.” Mars Hill Audio is publishing an audio version of this classic Mark Mitchell essay.…
March 15, 2025

Boys, Suburbia, and Repair

“Larry Ellison’s Half-Billion-Dollar Quest to Change Farming Has Been a Bust.” Tom Dotan reports on one tech titan’s efforts to remake agriculture from his base on an Hawaiian island: “Little…
March 8, 2025

Pilgrimage, Translation, and Control

“Sexuality After Industrialism.” James Wood urges conservatives to learn from Ivan Illich’s analysis of gender: “Illich forces us to reconsider the very foundation of our gender debates. Targeting the sexual…
March 1, 2025
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More Articles

Pollution and Sin: An Earth Month Reflection

As I picked up litter, I had ample time to reflect upon the stunning parallels between human pollution and sin.
April 28, 2025

Taking a Turn Taking it on the Chin

But the attacks on higher education are also part of a broader trend, which devalues work itself, especially work motivated by love
April 26, 2025

What’s in a Name?

We all have the power to name ourselves—collectively, not individually
April 25, 2025

Garden With Children

I am happy that the boys enjoy the garden too. But who knows how it will be in five years?
April 24, 2025

Can Good Deeds Become Like Murmurations?

The lessons of murmuration are clear. There is power and safety in community
April 23, 2025

A Phone that Does not Ring

Jess never missed calling me today, even when I was half a world away. This marks the eleventh year that my phone will not ring.
April 22, 2025

The Race to the Bottom: A Review of Ross Benes’s ‘1999’

It never fails—whenever Benes defends low culture, he does so in the exact terms that he ought to be using to criticize it
April 21, 2025

Crisis Response and the Remembering of Nightlife Hample

A peaceful crisis response paves the way for restoration and wholeness.
April 19, 2025

On Lear, Lent, and Christian Tragedy

The man of faith knows that even the deepest darkness may be irradiated
April 18, 2025

In Between on the Camino de Santiago

Whether the remains of St. James lie there or not, most of our band will likely return again to travel a new way to Santiago.
April 17, 2025

Sweet Tea and Sacraments: Flannery O’Connor, the American South, and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition

O’Connor’s fiction does not offer sentimental portraits of faith—it tests faith.
April 16, 2025

From Postliberalism to Preliberalism: A Review of The Church Against the State

Next time we’re drinking bourbon together, I look forward to telling him that he’s got all the right impulses and is coming to the wrong conclusions.
April 15, 2025

From the Archive