Month: May 2020
Natural Law from Noah to Milton Friedman: A Review of David Vandrunen, “Politics after Christendom”
In recent decades, Protestant theologians have rightly restored Natural Law to its vaunted place in their ethical and theological lexicon. Among those legions to be credited with restoring it is David VanDrunen, Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and...
The One God of Katherine Sonderegger
“Theology awakens a grateful heart.”[1] Thus the first words of Katherine Sonderegger’s remarkable Systematic Theology fall. I began reading theology years ago out of a longing to know the Lord. Desire drove study. It still does.
Economics Turn Homeward
COVID-19 uncertainties provide a cultural moment for re-evaluating what really constitutes the good life. While the mandatory homecoming of sorts drags on, it sheds fresh and favorable light on home economies of simplicity and some measure of self-sufficiency. Stay-at-home orders...
The Cross Amidst a Plague: Choosing Cruciformity Over Self-Interest
In the weeks leading to Easter, Americans found themselves, religious or not, on an enforced fast from normal life. The liturgical feelings associated with Lent became the daily realities of uneasiness, mourning, fear. There are the real personal fears, the...
Reviewing National Conservatism’s Policy Agenda
One of the problems surrounding the conversation around national conservatism – a new branding for more market-skeptical, nationalist conservatism – is the fact that the conversation has been thus far rooted in the theoretical and the esoteric. The argument (mainly...
Back to the Sources: Notes on Chesterton the Historian
G.K. Chesterton wore many hats in his lifetime. His enterprises as a writer, philosopher, and theologian yielded a majority of the recognition, but we ought also consider Chesterton the historian. Chesterton—though it was not explicitly amongst his primary faculties of...
“Ending Overcriminalization and Mass Incarceration,” with Dr. Anthony Bradley
Justice issues are ever prevalent in modern society. Moreover, conversations around justice are often co-opted by overly simplistic solutions. Dr. Anthony Bradley (Professor of Religious Studies at The King’s College in New York City and Research Fellow at the Acton...
Ahmaud Arbery and “National Conversations”
Under ordinary circumstances, the arrest of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers might have prompted another national conversation on race, which is what we call it when family members who don’t talk in real life argue on Facebook, and invite long-lost high school...
The Politics of Mask-Wearing
As many parts of our country move away from lock-downs and Americans begin to go about our business, the question of whether to mask or not has moved nearer to the center of our national consciousness. While it might seem...
The Populists and the Pandemic
Recently the world commemorated VE day, celebrating the vast global effort to defeat fascism, an inhuman ideology which sacrificed life on the altar of materialism. The Queen gave a speech to her quarantined subjects: declaring that ‘our streets are not...