community 235

He took the words of Jesus to heart—he rarely judged others. When he passed this year, he left a memory not of condemnation, but of mercy.

College football is a local endeavor that should be enacted by those with a connection to that place.

Are we capable of that on a scale that will regenerate our political life? Perhaps not, at least for now, but we can take heart from the knowledge that, over…

But I suspect that this stirring book will strike a chord with many readers of Front Porch Republic.

I am not sure if Garfield ever made chili for his supporters. The men and women who descended on his property were there to meet a future president. What Garfield…

I mourn the storm. It’s far from over. But I also do not mourn without hope.

Our need for privacy has been accentuated by the way we live, in which goods and services arrive seemingly out of the ether, things we’ve bought to consume, throw away,…

Between these extremes, however, is free choice within reasonable limits, which I believe makes the value of community and its deliberative fruits still possible, even within the reality of the…

Like the very young and the very old among us, we must forget the learned delusion of independence that revolution prefers and accept the radical dependence of the human condition.

One of the novel’s achievements is the way that it unfolds this centuries-long story with both clarity and subtlety, establishing a clear feel for right and wrong while casting no…

When Christ died on the cross, the disciples did not know he was going to rise again. But for Christians today, we see the full picture, and these are not…

Zoning laws, housing codes, and a culture marked by suspicion and antisociality make it difficult to revive the boarding house, a living arrangement that once applied to nearly half of…

Organized community events bring people together and are an integral part of forging strong communal bonds in a place. Like the law, they serve a purpose in a community’s ecosystem…

You don’t have to be normal. You don’t have to be weird. You just have to be a person – which is a moral ideal, not a fact of nature…

To love and learn from each other in our communities is what good gossiping accomplishes.

So the core of We Have Never Been Woke is persuasive, and it's hard not to see his thesis in operation in all kinds of fields, once you look at…

The future of our built environment is in our hands. We can reject the alienation of modernism and instead foster spaces that cultivate connection, celebrate history, and create a sense…

When we toast we celebrate our fight against the forces of darkness and evil.

These questions would cause little debate or consternation without the importance of place tethering them. And, despite the erasure of communitarian mindsets and regional identity, place still matters.

What the Amish understand perhaps more than we do is the necessity of maintaining and protecting domains of embodied human agency in our lives.

Pastoral ministry in prison can change lives, but it doesn’t magically erase the pain of incarceration.

Society needs its most talented individuals to not just dive into the fray of politics and policy but to build the institutions that shape culture.

America is known for its English-Protestant roots, for the pilgrims who settled the Eastern seaboard and the Anglos who descended from them. But America has a French-Catholic history, too, and…

If the sky clears above us, we won’t suddenly find ourselves saints. But at least, perhaps, we’ll be able to see the stars.