Christianity 61
Sacramental Ontology in a Christian School
To gaze upon creation through a sacramental lens is to admit that God is God and we are not; it is an antidote to the poison of Genesis 3.
Paranoia and Perfect Love
It would be easy to dismiss my argument as a simple platitude: “Trust God.” But it is trust in the infinite that allows us to trust finite beings.
Medicine Wheel for the Planet: A Review
There ought not be unnecessary opposition between Indigenous and Christian perspectives. The creative work of caring for our ecology is hard enough; let us not also misunderstand one another.
Don’t Bite the Hand That Taketh Away
God is perverted in our minds from a giver into an imminent enemy. He becomes the all-knowing one who alone reads our hearts’ desires and who alone, in His power,…
Speaking Responsibly about Religion and Politics: A Review of Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism?
This driving principle of love and human flourishing, rooted in the Christian understanding of humanity being made in the image of God, has spurred the great social and political reform…
Pentecost and AI: Being Human in a World of Disabling Algorithms
Rather than empowering us to live in humble confidence in relationship with others and our maker, AI offers us a choice similar to that which confronted Esau.
Stability as Spiritual Formation
“They see us as deeply lonely people,” Barry told Fred, “and one of the reasons we’re lonely is that we’ve cut ourselves off from the nonhuman world and have called…
No Good without Evil: G.W. Leibniz’s Reconciliation of Animal Suffering with God
A robin or chicken that seems to die in a totally senseless way is viewed by humans only in its individuality, without seeing the universal order underlying this suffering.
Taste and See: A Review of Christian Poetry in America Since 1940
While many recognize the limits of human language and the ways it has sometimes been used to harm, they see language as capable of naming (or, at least, gesturing toward)…
Learning through Language: Education and Electronic Media
The best educators (and the best educational institutions) will neither embrace nor eschew the electronic technologies that commercial forces wish to prevail in higher education; rather they will assess each…
Uprooted
We are the blind, each calling out that which we are so sure we see. No longer aware that the sight we now marvel at is little more than one…
What are Hands For? Technology, Hands, and the Wounds of God
Christ touches. With his hands he heals the sick, opens mouths, unstops ears, blesses the children, and raises the dead. And ultimately it is the marks in Christ’s hands that…
“And the Word Was Made Flesh”: Placing Ethnicity in the Gospels and Making Conservative Politics Humane
It is a recognition of the beauty and goodness of ethnic diversity combined with a message of universal love and mercy that should be at the heart of a true…
The Monkey in the Margin: History, Tradition, and Transgression
[T]he early scholastic notion of revelation was more dynamic than the modern one. Revelation does not occur, in the medieval understanding, once and for all in the static letters of…
Learning to Distinguish between Demonic and Redemptive Technologies
In a recent essay for Christianity Today, “Do All Plants Go to Heaven?,” Abigail Murrish speculates that GMOs might be present in the New Jerusalem. It’s certainly an interesting question.…
On Dreher’s Benedict Option, the Christians and Localists Who Can Live It, and the Ones Who Can’t
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Rod Dreher and I aren't close friends, but like many Front Porch Regulars, I've been blessed with the opportunity to associate with and learn from…
Soil and Sacrament in Certain Kinds of Cities
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] This past weekend here in Wichita, I participated in the Eighth Day Institute's symposium, Soil and Sacrament: The World as Gift; Rod Dreher has a…
If the U.S. Were a Christian Nation, Would that Make Christianity the Most Violent Religion in the World?
Hillsdale, Michigan. The Paris killings a few weeks ago have unleashed a number of reflections about Islam and its tendency toward violence. Robert Tracinski makes a point that I have…
No, I’m Not Charlie Martel, Either
Some time ago a number of my Facebook friends, some who even claimed to be practicing Catholics, changed their profile pictures on Facebook (equivalent to an avatar) to a mathematical…
Local Wonderings in Wichita
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS, is the home to a wonderful bookstore, Eighth Day Books. (Which isn't my favorite bookstore in Wichita, but that's partly because my wife…
The Loss of a Culture of Personhood and the End of Limited Government
Philadelphia, PA The idea and practice of limited government begins with Christianity. Pagan antiquity could not imagine such a thing, because there was no distinction between religion and governance. …
Abbeville Institute Summer School: “Understanding the South and the Southern Tradition.”
Many FPR readers may be interested in attending the Abbeville Institute's Eleventh Annual Summer School: "Understanding the South and the Southern Tradition." It will be held at St. Christopher Conference Center, Seabrook…
What’s Wrong with the Republican Party?
An ill-fitting presidential nominee led to an election loss. A better nominee might win next time--but is winning enough?
Richard Weaver on War and Stephen Smith on Liberalism in ANAMNESIS.
FPR readers will be interested in two new essays in ANAMNESIS. The first, by Professor Jay Langdale, is a fascinating examination of Richard Weaver's analysis of pathologies related to modern…