The Archive
Matthew LoftusHistoryarchaeology
This essay is as fascinating and fun as everyone says it is: The Nazareth inscription is a block of marble, about two feet tall, a foot wide, and two inches deep. The first of its 22 lines of text, carved […]
Matthew LoftusCultureHistory
I enjoyed this essay from Anthony Barr on the question of “wokeness” and gnosticism: I want to suggest that “woke” is a redeemable term. If we think of wokeness as loving attentiveness to reality, a commitment to seeing the world […]
Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureHistoryEthics
Christians are always tempted by fear, but genuine challenges require genuine faith.
Matthew LoftusCultureEconomicsHealth & Medicine
Don’t you just love that headline? These competing concerns leave the FDA trying to thread a particularly tricky needle: How do they get these products into the hands of the people who need them, while keeping them away from people […]
Matthew LoftusCultureHistoryEthics
I know many of my followers might be skeptical of the concept of “whiteness” and may bristle at the question, “Can white people be saved?” If that’s you — and even if it’s not — I invite you to read […]
Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureHistoryEthicsCriminal Justice
Anthony Comstock was vilified and mocked in his time, but our times call for a new Comstock -- and some real restrictions on pornography.
Matthew LoftusHealth & Medicine
Atul Gawande jumps on the anti-EMR bandwagon, and it’s a very satisfying read: There’s a techno-optimist view of how this story will unfold. Big technology companies are already circling to invest in IKS Health. They see an opportunity for artificial […]
Matthew LoftusFamily
Comment Magazine’s Seerveld Prize Winners have been announced, and the entries are a delight to read. I wanted to highlight Matt Miller’s entry in particular: Consumerism, however, is a subtle demon, and it may not be readily exorcised through the practice […]
Matthew LoftusCultureHistory
This is a fine essay by James Poulos on the failure of “mass enlightenment” to occur via technology and the urge of the institutional elites to add more technology to fix the problem: On those premises, the internet arose. By […]
Matthew LoftusPoliticsFeatured
Political societies should not simply secure certain negative rights for their members, but should also make it easier for people to be good.
Matthew LoftusCriminal Justice
This investigation by ProPublica into an orphanage and school in Liberia often reads like a checklist of what not to do when running an aid project overseas: Lack of oversight on the ground. Lack of trained or experienced staff running programs. […]
Matthew LoftusCultureHistoryEthics
Micah Meadowcroft is in top form with this essay at The New Atlantis about the letdown that colonizing Mars could be: Consider your place in our interplanetary future. Let us speculate. Suppose that SpaceX or some similar enterprise has succeeded, […]