Suffer the Little Children
It is a hard thing not to love one’s children. It is not hard to resent them, to see them as miscreants or burdens, to think them selfish and base, to find their concupiscence by turns infuriating and repugnant. Neither...
Kanye the Pious
If you were to read half-a-dozen reviews of Kanye West’s latest album, Donda — and I recommend that you don’t —you would learn chiefly that West is a bad person. He’s a bad person for associating with social undesirables; he’s...
We Became American: Why the Right is Wrong about Afghan Refugees
In 1969, my father escaped Libya in the back of a Red Cross ambulance just after Moammar Qaddafi overthrew King Idris I. Just six years old, my father, along with my aunts and grandparents, fled directly from Tripoli to Baltimore, where he lived for...
The World Was Not Worthy: In Memoriam Fr. Paul Mankowski
Hagiography has fallen out of fashion. Whether it is seen as dishonest or whether there are too few saints worthy of it, I don’t know. But the death of Fr. Paul Mankowski, S.J. calls for nothing less, for he was...
Presbyterians in Egypt
Writing a report of his time as a missionary in Egypt, Andrew Watson had this to say about Egypt’s Christians: “In general, the Copts are a simple-minded, devout, religious people, with great reverence for the Scriptures.”[1] The stated goal of...
Making Sense of Kanye 2020
“The system broken, the school is closed, the prison’s open… In this white man world, we the ones chosen.” “Is hip-hop just a euphemism for a new religion? The soul music of the slaves that the youth is missing? But...
“Are You Alone Wise?”: Luther’s Answers for Today’s Protestants
A decade after he began advocating for reform, Martin Luther had become highly attuned to the fundamental issues at stake in the debates with his adversaries. Having made Sola Scriptura his rallying cry, he was forced to face the chaos...