Against the Political Atheists: On the Safety of the Dead Consensus
In his book Living on Fire the late Daniel Kelly tells the story of L. Brent Bozell, a Catholic writer, activist, and politician. Bozell began his career safely ensconced in the conservative establishment, writing at National Review with his brother-in-law and fellow...
Post-Liberalism and American Racism
Recently Adam Serwer published a piece in The Atlantic characterizing the current conversation about liberalism amongst American conservatives as essentially being a sustained, intellectualized temper tantrum thrown over their loss of power. Ross Douthat has done the main work in critiquing...
On the Liberal’s Incoherence: Responding to Charles C. W. Cooke
In a post over at National Review, NR editor Charles C. W. Cooke has joined the chorus of critics castigating Sohrab Ahmari for giving up on liberalism. Here is the meat of his critique, though you ought to read the whole...
Book Review: Dignity by Chris Arnade
One of the most important explorations of political theology in recent years is Andrew Willard Jones’s book Before Church and State. Jones’s argument is that our modern social norms, including our political system, are built on the idea that conflict...
Can Justice Be Saved? Faith, Love, and Hope in a Political Key
Matt gave three lectures recently at Biola University on the topic of justice. The recordings are now online and are definitely worth your time:
Are America’s Megachurches Too Big to Fail?
2008 introduced us to the idea of something being “too big to fail.” In that case it was our nation’s largest banks. They had grown so large and played such a decisive role in our nation’s economy that our national...
Can Social Conservatives Lead?
Rusty Reno is right in saying that social conservatives should take the lead in American conservatism. The reason why is plain. Unlike the libertarians, we have a substantive account of the good to which we think society should tend. Unlike...
David French and the Revolutionary Style in Conservative Journalism
In his sharp response to Sohrab Ahmari’s attack on his approach to politics, National Review writer David French noted that Ahmari’s attack hinged on two bizarre fictions: First, the fiction that French himself is a timid milquetoast classical liberal who...
On Pro-Life Incrementalism
I heard a man say once that one’s entire response to Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option hinged on how one thought about the sustainability of the current social order. That the existing social order is hostile to orthodoxy is obvious. But...
The End of Christendom: Notes on the Burning of Notre Dame
Rod Dreher is fond of quoting a line from Benedict XVI who—forgive my paraphrasing—has said that the church’s two most powerful evangelistic tools are her art and her saints. Though I have never been fully outside the church, even during...