Month: March 2020
The Perpetual Motion Machine and the Pandemic
My grandmother is eighty-five years old. She will die someday. I want her to die well and, in the meantime, to live well. She lives with my aunt about ten minutes from where I live with my wife and four...
“Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin,” with Dr. Taylor Patrick O’Neill
What hath St. Thomas to do with predestination? Dr. Taylor Patrick O’Neill joins Matt and Derek to discuss his recent book, Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin: A Thomistic Analysis, to examine the Thomist understanding of predestination and how...
Seeing Jack: The Prodigal in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead
‘For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him?’ In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate...
Public Reasoning in a Pandemic: Responding to Moore, Reno, and Littlejohn
The rapidly expanding number of Covid-19 cases in the United States poses an extraordinary test of our nation’s institutions and their leaders. In recent days, a discussion has broken out about how we should integrate our interest in preserving and...
“No Wealth But Life”: Moral Reasoning in a Pandemic
Two weeks ago we awoke from our dogmatic slumber of American exceptionalism to realize that the coronavirus was not merely some “Chinese virus,” or the bane of aging Italians. America, and her public officials in particular, have been playing catch...
Omnium Gatherum Pt. 2: Q&A
The whole cast and crew of Matt, Derek, Alastair, and Andrew, are here to answer questions from listeners of Mere Fidelity. Listen in as the guys tackle the following: Where does one start reading the early church fathers, does the...
On Being ‘Pro-Life’ in a Pandemic
What does it mean to be ‘pro-life’ when we’re in the midst of coronavirus and our economy is crashing as we try to contain it? The question has received some attention in recent days, in part because of our President’s...
The Tribe of Ishmael: Whiteness and Christian Identity
In 1889, an Indianapolis pastor named Oscar McCulloch gave a speech that empowered the development of eugenics in America. McCulloch had studied the Ishmaelites, a poor, white, extended family, and named his speech, “The Tribe of Ishmael: A Study in...
Augustine Amongst the Strong Gods
This is a time of ferment on the American right; that much has become abundantly clear. The post-Reagan consensus built around social conservatism and economic libertarianism is failing, trampled down by an economy that has left middle America behind and...
Learning in Quarantine
For my students On 9/11, I was a senior in college. It was my birthday, in fact. After sleeping in (as I said, it was my birthday), I came downstairs in my off-campus apartment. I couldn’t find anyone. It was...