Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor agreed that “tenderness leads to the gas chambers,” and what they were trying to get through our thick heads is that tenderness without truth is tyranny. As Rodney Stark has pointed out in The Rise of Christianity, the Roman Empire was a harsh, unforgiving, cruel, and relentless society in which [...]
The problem is not whether black lives matter in an unequivocal, objective sense—of course they do—but in the fact that certain black lives don’t seem to matter to some people. Having asked such a provocative question, I’m going to answer it unequivocally. Yes, of course all black lives matter. They matter not because they are [...]
Childlikeness, as both the beginning and the end of our creaturely way of being, is the key to being effective and realistic in efforts to renew the world, and indeed is the grounds for never-failing hope in these efforts. Liberal culture’s anti-child practices are bound up with a logic of childlessness most basically defined in [...]
The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the case of Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell. This is a case in which a small order of nuns is seeking exemption from an Obama Administration requirement that they help distribute free contraceptives and abortifacients (drugs that cause abortions) through their government-mandated healthcare plan. Why [...]
No matter what the party lines, political lies, and euphemisms are, abortion is never safe, and it can also be harmful to women. If the Supreme Court of the United States acts, it might very well help to uphold the right to life across the nation. Abortion that is “safe and legal” is a fallacy, [...]
On January 26, 1959, the French Academy of Sciences published the findings of a young scientist, Jérôme Lejeune, which proved, for the first time, a link between mental disability and chromosomal abnormality. Lejeune’s discovery that Down syndrome was caused by the presence of an additional chromosome was nothing short of revolutionary. Twenty-four years later, on [...]
In a recent essay* for the Christian Post, “The Christian Right: A New Hope for the Republican Party,” Napp Nazworth argues that Christian political conservatism offers the best resource for expanding the party’s base among non-whites. Citing the demography deficit within the Republican Party, Nazworth argues “social conservatives are most attuned to the sympathies of [...]
I have added my name to a friend of the court brief in the case of Little Sisters of the Poor vs. Burwell. Professor Nathanial Oman of the law school at William and Mary proposed and took the lead in writing this brief, which was joined by a number of concerned law professors. It was [...]
According to St. Augustine, Alexander the Great had a rather interesting conversation with a captured pirate. “How dare you molest the sea?” Alexander demanded. “How dare you molest the whole world?” the pirate angrily replied. “Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief. You, doing it with a great [...]
I am guessing I am not alone in being tired of politics and, especially, politicians this election cycle. Often, perhaps more often than not, I am tired of politics. It is just so gritty and manipulative, so low and utilitarian. Give me just one Socrates for every thousand politicians. Though I am not proud of [...]
My professor once asked me if I thought the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade was logically decided. Being the devout pro-life, traditionalist Christian that I am, I said yes. It was perfectly logical, if of course, we accept the two decisions upon which Roe was built. In Griswold v. Connecticut the court essentially invented [...]
It seems only yesterday that the Supreme Court, in the Hobby Lobby case, held that the federal government cannot force Christian owners of closely held corporations to pay for employee health insurance coverage for abortion inducing drugs. After that case, some commentators predicted greater government respect for the rights of religious believers to refuse their [...]
Unborn Child is the title of an album boldly released in 1974 by the rock duo Seals and Crofts at the height of their popularity. Ever hear of it? Didn’t think so. Even if you were a pop music fan during the 1970’s you likely have no recollection of the album, or its title song, [...]
Even during an age in which acts of callous brutality have become common, the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell shocks. It was Gosnell who ran the filthy abortion clinic in which live babies were murdered, women were subjected to “treatment” by unlicensed assistants (including massive and even deadly doses of drugs), and fetal remains were [...]