The Archive

Every essay.

Matthew LoftusArt

my two favorite Advent records (plus more!) - Doctors Without Boredom

Just wanted to highlight my two favorite Advent records here. The first is Behold the Lamb of God, which tells the story of the Bible leading up to the birth of Jesus and traces the longing for a Savior from […]

Jake MeadorFeaturedBlogging

The 2018 Eliot Awards - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

The 2018 Eliot Awards are now live with essays from theologians, essayists, and feature writers ranging across many different topics.

Matthew Loftus

life and death on a prayer walk - Doctors Without Boredom

This essay is D.L. Mayfield at her very best: If our front door had a screen, I would have banged it on my way out. But instead, I closed it quietly, although I could still hear my children whining to […]

Tim MiloschPoliticsFeatured

Asynchronous Citizens: Addressing Flaws in Digital Citizenship - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

The 2011 Pew Research Center study, “Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites” is one of many evaluating the experience of the young on social media. Given ongoing concerns about the effects of social media on young people, the […]

Matthew LoftusHealth & Medicine

preventing suicide with text messages - Doctors Without Boredom

This article on the work of Dr. Jerome Motto and the therapists carrying on his work today is fascinating: The most pivotal response was sent to Douglas Kreider, one of Motto’s researchers, by a study participant who lived in an […]

Guest WriterBibleFeatured

The Seed of Woman: Mary Among the Protestants | Mere Orthodoxy

One need not adopt all the Marian dogmas of the Roman church to recognize that Mary has a larger role in the biblical story than many Protestants recognize.

Matthew LoftusCultureHistoryEthicsEconomics

Sabbath and soil - Doctors Without Boredom

Years ago, when I first studied Isaiah 58, I found its call to honor the Sabbath mingled with the call to do away with violence and injustice odd. I suppose that I had grown up thinking of Sabbath-keeping as a […]

Matthew LoftusFamilyEthics

stopping adultery with honesty - Doctors Without Boredom

Judy Wu Dominick shares her story at Christianity Today about telling her husband that she had feelings for another man: Looking back, it’s not surprising it happened. I was in the midst of a major identity shift that was changing the […]

Brewer EberlyFeatured

Reforming Virtue Ethics | Mere Orthodoxy

Reformed Christians should have no difficulty with learning from and using concepts traditionally associated with virtue ethics.

Matthew LoftusCultureHistoryEconomics

"Uncontrolled liberalism, in other words, prepares the grounds for its own demise." - Doctors Without Boredom

There are some very sharp insights in this interview with Pankaj Mishra in the LA Review of Books: “Liberal modernity,” you’ve argued, “has prepared the ground for its destruction” by unleashing forces that are “uncontrollable.” Have these forces contributed to […]

Matthew LoftusCultureEconomics

"economics of meaning" - Doctors Without Boredom

Shadi Hamid has a very interesting essay in American Affairs Journal about the possibilities of left populism and the “economics of meaning”: It might be tempting to say that Left populists simply need a “hero”; the Left, unlike the Right, […]

Guest WriterFeatured

The Prophet of Unbelief: T. S. Eliot's Forgotten Predecessor

Though he wrote nearly 100 years before him, the 19th century poet Arthur Clough shows many of the same traits we associate with T. S. Eliot.