Moral Realism, Public Health, and Truth-telling Amid COVID-19
As the lockdown proceeds with no official end date in sight, we must turn our attention to a new reality confronting us: It is impossible to proceed with a lockdown to prevent COVID-19 deaths without other harms resulting. This was...
A Blue Collar, Big Society Conservatism
With Matt waxing eloquent during last week’s four theses on social conservatism, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight how aspects of social conservatism are capturing renewed attention. Michael Gerson at the Washington Post and the ever-maddening David Brooks...
Young Republicans: The New Materialists
A recent article published in the New York Times dealt with young Republicans abandoning their party’s historic positions on social conservatism, instead preferring a more libertarian posture on social issues. So now, there are young “conservatives” making peace with abortion...
Marriage & My Common Good
“The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity. But an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children literally alter the destiny of nations.” –G. K. Chesterton I’ve recently returned from celebrating my wife’s grandparent’s 6oth wedding anniversary. Their...
Of Foils & Scapegoats: Evangelicals & Partisanship
There is no more of a popular and easy target for young evangelicals to skewer than a church wedded to political conservatism. Simply recounting the charts, the statistics, and the angst fueling the movement would prove unhelpful because of its...
Books & Culture on Evangelicalism
Friend-of-Mere-O Christopher Benson has alerted me to an important discussion taking place over at Books & Culture. With the release of Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, the question of “what is evangelicalism?” is once again being addressed. Books and...
Newt Gingrich, Evangelicals, & Imperfectability
This post is coauthored by Andrew Walker and Eric Teetsel In recent days, Mere Orthodoxy has played host to several essays on Newt Gingrich. Matthew Lee Anderson—a friend and co-laborer in the effort to engage young evangelicals with conservative ideas—and...
Are Evangelicals Really Conservative?
By far, the most important (and provocative) book I’ve read this year belongs to perennial controversialist, D.G. Hart. His From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism is proving to be quite the conversation starter in...
New York Times: Red-State Evangelical Fundamentalism
Karl Giberson and Randall Stephens have penned an excoriating editorial in the New York Times on Red-State evangelical fundamentalism. This is no surprise as Giberson, in particular, and Stephens, authors of The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age, have reigned...
A “hubbub” on Marriage with Tony Jones & Lisa Miller
There is a “hubbub” afoot on whether clergy should perform weddings on behalf of the state. The “hubbub” is fomented mostly by Tony Jones, who refuses to perform weddings on behalf of the state or have his own marriage recognized by...