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...
Whose Reaganism? Which Republicanism?
In an intriguing document published last week at First Things and signed by a number of prominent dissident conservatives, the drafters called for an end to “warmed-over Reaganism,” and exhorted America’s conservatives to embrace a communal conservatism that values home, small community, and that...
Apologies, Power, and Martyrdom in a Decadent Age
For the second time in 18 months Republicans have needed to make use of the distinction between ephebophilia and pedophilia while defending one of their own. The fact that we are here may well say all that needs saying about...
The Surprising Humanity of the Westminster Confession
Though there is no shortage of disagreement over the sources of our current malaise, that we live in a decadent society is, perhaps, one of the few ideas that actually can unite many conservative and progressive Americans. What’s more, in...
Will Complementarianism Die with the Baby Boomers?
In the latest edition of his newsletter “The Masculinist,” Aaron Renn dismissed complementarianism as a baby boomer phenomenon that will inevitably die with that generation. Much of the analysis is both interesting and correct, but it also misses a few key points...
Ben Sasse Heightens the Contradictions
In a November 2018 episode of Saturday Night Live, congressman-elect Lt. Cmdr. Dan Crenshaw of Texas appeared with SNL star Pete Davidson. The much-discussed segment came one week after Davidson had made tasteless jokes about Crenshaw’s eye patch, which he...
Book Review: The Dignity Revolution by Daniel Darling
It is inherent to sin’s nature to rationalize itself. This is hardly a new insight. After all, the almost immediate response of Adam and Eve in the aftermath of the world’s first sin was to justify themselves by shifting the...