The Archive

Every essay.

Jake Meador

Nursing Fathers and the New Right - Commonplaces

Eric Hutchinson first drew my attention to the suggestive description of the government as a “nursing father” in the 23rd chapter of the Westminster Confession. The phrase is in keeping with the Reformed tradition’s sensibilities about the fifth commandment, for […]

Colin RedemerFeaturedEconomics and BusinessCurrent PoliticsJournalJournal 3

Unions are Dead; Long Live Unions - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

Oren Cass’s book The Once and Future Worker is among the most important in living memory on the subject of labor from the conservative perspective. He instinctively gets that there is a pre-economic political relationship in which all economic activity […]

Jake MeadorHistoryEconomicsBook Reviews

Gray on Sociology - Commonplaces

Gray: If Positivism is the chief source of the twentieth century’s most powerful secular religions it is partly through its impact on the social sciences. For Positivists, modernity is the transformation of the world by the use of scientific knowledge. […]

Jake MeadorHistoryEconomicsBook Reviews

Gray on Sociology - Commonplaces

Gray: If Positivism is the chief source of the twentieth century’s most powerful secular religions it is partly through its impact on the social sciences. For Positivists, modernity is the transformation of the world by the use of scientific knowledge. […]

Jake MeadorChurchBook Reviews

Schaeffer's Legacy - Commonplaces

I am a former L’Abri student. Every time I visit Rochester, MN, I make a point of visiting Dr. Schaeffer’s grave. He’s something of a spiritual grandfather to me. My most treasured book in my home library is a copy […]

Jake MeadorChurchBook Reviews

Schaeffer's Legacy - Commonplaces

I am a former L’Abri student. Every time I visit Rochester, MN, I make a point of visiting Dr. Schaeffer’s grave. He’s something of a spiritual grandfather to me. My most treasured book in my home library is a copy […]

Katelyn Walls SheltonFamilyFeaturedJournalJournal 3

Flawed Myths - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

Lyz Lenz. Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women. New York: Bold Type Books, 2020. 240pp, $26. At church, I was taught that if a woman denied sex to her husband, he would find sex elsewhere. At church, […]

Chris KrychoFeaturedEconomics and BusinessFormationJournalJournal 3

The Great Unmooring - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

Richard Sennett. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York: WW Norton, 2000. 176pp, $15.99. Anne Helen Petersen and Charlie Warzel. Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from […]

Jake MeadorChurch

Charlie Dates on Trusting God - Commonplaces

This’ll preach: The text says now Jesus asked them these questions to test them. He knew what he was gonna do. Jesus says ‘where can we buy bread that we may eat?’ You know what I think Jesus is looking […]

Jake MeadorChurch

Charlie Dates on Trusting God - Commonplaces

This’ll preach: The text says now Jesus asked them these questions to test them. He knew what he was gonna do. Jesus says ‘where can we buy bread that we may eat?’ You know what I think Jesus is looking […]

Charlie ClarkFeaturedEthicsEconomics and BusinessJournalJournal 3

Good Work - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

We hunted for steel along flat-bottom train rails—glass blanketing the gravel track bed like chicken feed, jimson weed between creosote-steeped timbers— picked over buckled trailers and garbage stacks: cracked pump heads, mower blades, band saws rusted mid-cut. The clang of […]

Rory GrovesFamilyFeaturedFormationJournalJournal 3

The Discipleship of Work - Mere Orthodoxy | Christianity, Politics, and Culture

When we moved to our farm several years ago with a toddler and newborn in tow, we mainly had it in mind to experience a bit of the country life: to plant a large garden and perhaps raise a few […]