Dwight Longenecker

The Return of Storytelling in a Digital Age

Podcast stories, like reading, have the advantage of engaging the audience’s imagination. And lest the technophobes among us decry the dominance of gadgets, rather than the gadgetry taking us into a brave new world, the technology is actually allowing us to participate in a much older form of literature:...

Two Kinds of Jesuits

Whereas heroic missionary effort and martyrdom seemed the hallmark of the first Jesuits, the second generation moved in a different direction... In the Roman calendar, October is a harvest for militant saints. Kicking off with Saint Therese of Lisieux...

Our Own American Genocide: “Gosnell,” the Movie

While Gosnell tells the true story of a squalid, back-street abortion mill, we are also reminded by the film that the majority of baby murders are committed legally by nice, middle-class people who are well-connected, well-off, well-educated, well-spoken, and well-funded...

The Coen Brothers’ “True Grit”: Little Girls, Outrageous Outcasts, & Romantic Fools

The Coen brothers' heroes in True Grit are wacky anti-heroes, representing the common man against the establishment elite, the ordinary man in the face of outlandish wickedness. As such, they inspire every outsider who longs for greatness, every outcast who has a heart of genius, and every romantic fool who loves beauty,...

Aliens, Elephants, and Angels

Some time ago while wasting time I came across a seemingly profound, but ultimately silly discussion which is prevalent within popular culture. It’s called the Fermi Paradox, and it goes like this: “There are billions of stars out there like the sun. Therefore, statistically there must be billions of planets like earth where...

C.S. Lewis and the Lavender Inner Ring

Inner Rings exist in the institutions of every human endeavor, and the desire to belong leads the individual not at first to some great wickedness, but to the incremental compromise of truth and goodness required in order to be accepted by the insiders—leading, at last, to complete...

“A Bloody Habit”: The Story of a Vampire-Slaying Priest

Where are the Flannery O’Connors and Evelyn Waughs of our day, who can be witty about wickedness and plant their theology in the thicket of character, the turns of a plot, and the twist of a knife? Where are the writers who can be both entertaining and...

Opting for Saint Benedict in an Ordinary Parish

Like Saint Benedict we’re not trying to change the whole world. We’re simply doing what we can with what we have where we are... I first encountered Saint Benedict while I was a student at Oxford. I...

Black & White, But Gray All Over: Two Films by Graham Greene

Graham Greene’s morality tales are complex, subtle, and intricate. They horrify us not only in the puzzle of solving the crime, but in the more profound puzzle of good and evil, death and damnation, life and love, sin and salvation...

Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard

René Girard gave the intellectual universe a way of seeing old truths in a new way and new truths through an old lens. As a result, his work has already been hugely influential in a range of disciplines, both academic and cultural... Evolution of Desire: A Life...

Rebuilding Western Civilization: A Tale of Two Monasteries

The three vows of the Benedictine monk are obedience, stability, and conversion of life. In our own ways, we can follow this example, making it real by paying attention to prayer, cracking the books in solid study, and rolling up our sleeves in the honest, hard work...

The Quest for Love

Humanity is mystified by Love. All humans experience it. None can explain it. The mysterious genesis of this strange gift, the wondrous beginnings of this bizarre quality within the human heart prompts the greatest quest of all: the quest for Love...

Traditional Liturgy: The Great Unifier

The traditional liturgy may be a surprising magnet for disparate groups to be united because it is so ancient. It transcends culture because of both its antiquity and its ubiquity. It also transcends personal taste and cultural fashions... When...

Four Good Non-Christian Books by Christian Authors

C.S. Lewis once observed that we don’t need more Christian books, we need more Christian writers. In other words, people of faith who have the gift should write not just worthy books on prayer. They should write...