The Archive

Every essay.

Guest WriterFeaturedHealth and Medicine

Faithful Suffering and Medicine After "The Baconian Project"

By John Brewer Eberly, Jr., MD and Ben Frush, MD We recently published a case commentary in the AMA Journal of Ethics titled, “What Should Physicians and Chaplains Do When a Patient Believes God Wants Him to Suffer?” which has us […]

Matthew LoftusEthicsEducation

community impact

When I was in college, I spent three summers living in Kenya and working in Kibera, an urban slum that is home to over a million people. It was there that I first felt called to long-term cross-cultural work, worked […]

Jake MeadorArt

I Hope I'm Wrong by Dessa

One of the things I am increasingly convinced of is the fact that many, many American young people are actually quite concerned with matters of spirituality and religious life. The much-discussed “rise of the nones” is less about the rejection of […]

Zack HolbrookFeatured

The Toxic Environments of First Reformed

Paul Schrader's "First Reformed" is a careful and frustratingly ambiguous film asking questions about how places shape us and we, in turn, respond to them.

Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureEconomics

flourishing and paid family leave

The Families Valued initiative of the Center for Public Justice has just released their new report on paid family leave, and I have some thoughts about it over on the main page. I think they make a pretty solid argument […]

Matthew LoftusHealth & Medicine

"the patient in the hospital bed is just the icon"

Abraham Verghese has a moving and pointed reflection about the ubiquity of technology in the hospital: When students arrive on the wards full time, white coats packed with the aforementioned instruments, measuring tape, tuning fork, flashlight and Snellen eye chart, […]

Matthew LoftusFamilyFeaturedEconomics and BusinessCurrent Politics

Time to Flourish: On the Center for Public Justice's New Paid Family Leave Report

The Center for Public Justice's new report on paid family leave is a valuable advocacy piece on an important issue, but lacks detail in key places.

Matthew LoftusEthics

transitional justice for Jim Crow

Decades after the Civil Rights Act and the end of Jim Crow, it’s clear that American attempts to reckon with racial injustices have been insufficient. But what could we have done — or do — differently? Anthony Bradley has a […]

Matthew LoftusPoliticsFeatured

Defending the Vulnerable Requires More Than Centrist Justices

Freedom Road's call to "pause" the culture war until a moderate justice can be found to replace Anthony Kennedy actually reinforces culture war norms.

Matthew LoftusFamilyEthics

desire like dynamite

This op-ed from the New York Times about raising a child in a world facing environmental crisis is moving, even if you disagree with its premises: Living ethically means understanding that our actions have consequences, taking responsibility for how those […]

Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureEconomicsEducation

poverty of imagination

I mentioned my Comment review of Jamil Jivani’s debut book Why Young Men? before, and he’s done a follow-up interview with the associated Convivium: One of the things I explore in the book – which is a pretty defining part of […]

Guest WriterFeatured

Augustine, Concupiscence, and Friendship

Phillip Cary argues that understanding what Augustine meant by "concupiscence" can help us to see why the Spiritual Friendship movement is needed.