Category: Culture
Puritans and Theonomy, Reconsidered
Joseph Boot, The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society, 2nd ed. (2014; Toronto: Ezra Press, 2016), 978-0-9947279-0-9, 683 pages. Many Christians do not have a worked out political theology. We are aware of the importance of being...
The People Who Divide Us: Reviewing Owen Strachan’s “Christianity and Wokeness”
Owen Strachan. Christianity and Wokeness. Washington: Salem Books, 2021. 224 pp, $19.99. The church was meant to be the hope of the world and a reflection of a diverse community reflecting the harmony of the Triune God Himself. Unfortunately, the...
A Univers(ity) Without a Story
Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah -Psalm 84:4 Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi is a novel open to myriad interpretations. One reading of the story is as a parable helping us rediscover the integrative power of the...
Our Year in Reading (2021)
Here’s a short summary of the books that several of us amongst the regular Mere O editors and contributors enjoyed this year: Jake Meador One of my most enjoyable reads this year was Michael Chaplin’s Newcastle United Stole My Heart. It’s a...
The 2021 Eliot Awards
Since 2017, I’ve made a habit of going back at the end of the year to review and recognize some of my favorite pieces in magazine and web writing from the past 12 months. Inspired by David Brooks’s old Sydney...
In Defense of Dante
I read Dante for the first time in my ninth grade English class at McNeil High School. I have hazy memories of my teacher lecturing about the first few circles of Dante’s inferno, but the mental image of the ninth...
Book Review: Paul and the Power of Grace by John M. G. Barclay
It would be futile to try to hide my appreciation for John Barclay’s Paul and the Power of Grace, and this review will make little attempt to do so. Indeed, it is my recommendation that the reader of this review...
We the Fallen People: An Interview with Robert McKenzie
Robert Tracy McKenzie is Arthur F. Holmes Chair of Faith and Learning and professor of history at Wheaton College. The following interview revolves around McKenzie’s latest book, We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy. We...
The Role of Social Science in ‘Deconstructing’ White Evangelicalism
My friend Jonathan Leeman has written a thoughtful reflection on what he calls the project of evangelical deconstruction. I want to respond, in part because I expect some readers may view my forthcoming book, The Religion of American Greatness: What’s...
Finitude for the Faithful
Oliver Burkeman. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021. 288 pp, $27.00. St. Augustine taught that the fundamental condition of human beings is ignorance and difficulty. This truth can seem outdated in the...