Moral norms, often disparaged by Dietrich Bonhoeffer despite his own highly ethical upbringing and its clear impact on his virtuous life choices, are important for salvation because they orient us toward the good. Good works help develop within us habits that enable us to distinguish between good and evil. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Christian ecumenism [...]
Critics have taken to calling the leftist agitators who are running roughshod over university campuses hypocrites. The reasoning is that these self-described social-justice warriors, by shouting down speakers, silencing dissent on social media, and forcing resignations from those they accuse of “injustice,” are betraying the very toleration that allows them to speak freely. Unfortunately, the [...]
You would not know it from the discussion on campus or in our high schools, but the best analysis of the American War for Independence was provided while it was still unfolding. The character of the Americans, the designs of the British Parliament, and the policies that brought these two into conflict were brilliantly analyzed [...]
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 [...]
A family with older children could do much worse during the Easter season than to watch together a “double feature” of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and the recently released Risen. After the first has brought home to them the experience of Christ’s passion and death, with just a hint of the power [...]
Did you know that terrorism was your fault? Mine too, of course. In fact, if one pays attention to the writings of academic philosophers (always dangerous, I know) one would get the impression that terrorism is everyone’s fault—except for the academic philosophers (and the terrorists, of course). Two examples taken from academic works on the [...]
The world has now seen several decades of something quite new: explicitly anti-child policies. By this one might think I am referring to the “one-child” policy in China. And to a certain extent I am. Fines and the withholding of education and other services, not to mention forced abortions, rather comfortably fit within any definition [...]
A casual observer might be excused for believing that conservatives have a rather confused and conflicted view of the state. Albert J. Nock, a giant of early-twentieth-century conservatism, wrote a book titled Our Enemy the State. Yet Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism, observed that “he who gave our nature to be perfected by [...]
Our current refusal to stand for the right and the just, and to defend Christians suffering martyrdom on a regular basis, is a stain on our character—and one that the Crusaders never bore. One of the more ignorant bits of political correctness subverting our cultural memory is the movement to ban the Crusader mascot from [...]
Edmund Burke Now that the presidential primary season has begun in earnest, it seems a good time to reconsider just what a political party is—what its purpose and essential nature are, and how we may recognize whether one is healthy or in a state of disorder and potential breakdown. As with most things [...]
A Desperate Man: A Novel, by Claes Ryn (Athena Books, 2014) What ought a man be willing to do to save his country from corruption and ruin? Die? Subvert the ruling order? Kill? Participate in killing on a significant scale? On one level these deep moral questions are at the center of political philosopher Claes Ryn’s [...]
An avowed socialist is running for the presidential nomination of one of the two dominant political parties. Same-sex marriage has been proclaimed the law of the land. Levels of church attendance and religious belief have dropped significantly. And political correctness has run amok on campus, on the net, and in the entertainment industry. One could [...]
There was a time a few decades ago when many people I knew did not merely want to be like P.J. O’Rourke, they actually wanted to be him. This largely included me, despite the fact that, even at my most young and stupid I recognized drug use for what it is: enslavement to the most [...]
In a stunning display of moral arrogance and effete pique, David Brooks recently savaged Ted Cruz as a purveyor of “pagan brutalism” unfit to call himself a Christian, let alone lead a nation. Mr. Brooks, whose career rests on his role as liberal elites’ arbiter of conservative conduct, lost his well-coiffed cool as he descended [...]