Defending the Vulnerable Requires More Than a New Supreme Court Justice
Last week, Freedom Road (a justice-oriented consulting group) released a statement calling for a “pause” on the culture war. Occasioned by the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, it zeroes in on the problem of abortion and poverty...
Romans 13, Jeff Sessions, and Separating Families at the Border
In Dr. James Dobson’s Letter from 2012 predicting the dire consequences of an Obama election, he included the possibility of homeschooling families being forced to flee to Australia or New Zealand to continue educating their children at home. Imagine, if you...
Stay Woke, Cultivate Virtue
Many young apologetics students of my generation learned the truism that “without God, anything goes.” While our culture has flirted with the idea of taking amoral individualism seriously, most decent atheists and quasi-theists will prefer to defend a moral framework...
Moral Formation and Sexual Abuse, Part II: Learning to love what is good by loving one another
Part I If human beings were perfectly rational masters of their appetite by default, “Just don’t abuse women!” would be a sufficient response to the crisis of sexual abuse (along with “Punish the abusers!”). One sees a very strong Pelagian...
Moral Formation and Sexual Abuse Pt. 1: The Problem, How We Make It Worse, and How We Can’t Make It Better
As the stories of #MeToo and #ChurchToo have spread across the internet and previously unaware people have come to realize how widespread sexual abuse and harassment are, we are now asking how to prevent men from abusing or harassing women....
If Anything Is Pro-Life, Nothing Is
“This is a pro-life issue.” By now you have probably heard this sentiment expressed about any number of issues that are not immediately related to abortion. Food stamps, taxes, healthcare—even immigration!—are designated as “pro-life” causes because they may in some...
Conservatism Fails to Act Responsibly
Last Friday Kevin D. Williamson published an essay at National Review that in many ways represents mainstream conservatism’s highs and lows. By turns hilarious, insightful, bizarre, obnoxious, confused, and offensive, Williamson explores the ugly ways in which Trump and his...
On Powers, Principalities, and Politics
“I’m the idiot box. I’m the TV. I’m the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. I’m the boob tube. I’m the little shrine the family gathers to adore.” “You’re the television? Or someone in your the television?”...
The Uneasy Conscience of a Christian Liberal: On Michael Wear’s “Reclaiming Hope”
Is there hope for liberalism? Our editor Jake Meador doesn’t think so, following in the footsteps of Alistair Macintyre and Stanley Hauerwas. Alistair Roberts sums up many of the ways in which liberalism (which, as Jake has pointed out, should...
Creating a Just and Good Healthcare System
On June 3rd, 2017, I gave a talk to the Maryland chapter of the American Solidarity Party. The original text of my talk is below the video.