For the twenty-first-century disciple of Darwin, man—though he possesses no essential, intrinsic worth that separates him from his chimpanzee cousins—has proven himself a most effective destroyer of that very mother nature who evolved him into his present form... The Third Chimpanzee, by Jared Diamond (432 pages, Harper Perennial, 2006) Of the three founding fathers of [...]
The Secret Battle of Ideas about God asks five simple questions that cut to the heart of what it means to be human: Am I loved? Why do I hurt? Does my life have meaning? Why can’t we just get along? Is there any hope for the world? The Secret Battle of Ideas about God: Overcoming [...]
I’ve not been fully sure what to “make” of Pope Francis. He is clearly a man of God with a deep love for the poor and an even deeper personal humility. But how is one to respond to his pronouncements on economic and environmental issues? Pope Francis and the Caring Society, ed. Robert M. Whaples (Independent [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien in particular saw with prophetic insight how the Western world was growing increasingly thankless towards its own Rangers: its soldiers and its policemen, its sailors and its marines. How can we so cavalierly patronize, criticize, and denigrate the very officers who risk all to protect us from crime, violence, and unchecked aggression? This [...]
(Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Louis Markos as he examines democracy and egalitarian sameness. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher) Most Americans take for granted that democracy is an absolute good. If it can be said of an idea or a program that it promotes equality, Americans, whatever their [...]
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, warned us that there is nothing new under the sun. At least in terms of the current crisis in Greece, Solomon was dead right. As I look on aghast at the sense of entitlement, the lack of discipline, and the refusal to accept austerity measures that are driving [...]
When the Word of God loses not only its sharpness but its ability to discern between truth and error, the eternal and the temporal, the essential and the constructed, it loses as well its ability to speak prophetically to a culture that has lost its way. If Bible-believing Christians are to take back marriage, they [...]
I encourage you, my son, to be a conservative but not in the narrowly political sense. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats embody the fullness of true conservatism, and I have no desire here to give you partisan advice. I want to draw you to something deeper, a way of life that is grounded in [...]
The Hidden Story of Narnia: A Book-by-Book Guide to C. S. Lewis’ Spiritual Tales by Will Vaus (Winged Lion Press, 2010) When the film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe hit movie screens in December of 2005, religion-aversive media critics proclaimed with self-satisfied glee that all those naïve Christians who saw the Christian gospel [...]
C. S. Lewis: His Literary Achievement, Colin Manlove C. S. Lewis’s well-deserved reputation for being an apologist who conveyed the ageless truths of Christianity in a fresh, genial way that could speak with equal power to logicians hungry for rational proofs and lovers of beauty hungry for mystery has sometimes obscured the fact that he [...]
A review of Bradley G. Green’s The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (Crossway Books, 2011) and Houston Baptist Univeristy’s new Core Curriculum I am in my 22nd year as an English professor at Houston Baptist University, and I have never been so excited! In 2011, we unveiled our new Liberal Arts [...]
After weathering such mad and depraved emperors as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, Rome was blessed by a succession of five good emperors who brought stability and prosperity to the empire from 96-180: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. The last of these emperors was not only a good general, efficient administrator, and [...]
Radical egalitarianism in a democracy leads to mob rule, which leads to tyranny. So it happened in Ancient Athens, and so might it happen in America today. Most Americans take for granted that democracy is an absolute good. If it can be said of an idea or a program that it promotes equality, Americans, whatever [...]