Category: Liberal Arts
Befriending Books: On Reading and Thinking with Alan Jacobs and Zena Hitz
We like to think, of course, that we think; but what people allow to pass for thinking is usually about 90 percent reshuffling of images. —Robert Farrar Capon Do you want to do intellectual work? Begin by creating within you...
Reading “In Praise of Folly” in 2020
From across the political spectrum, it seems the one thing everyone can agree on right now is that we’ve lost the ability to speak to each other, much less persuade one another. Our seemingly irreconcilable differences about social and political...
Honor Thy Boomer
Boomers have had all the luck of cod in a cask in recent generational warfare. Lyman Stone declared at The Atlantic that “The Boomers Ruined Everything.” Joseph Sternberg accuses the Boomer bloc of The Theft of a Decade, stealing Millenials’...
Reading Emily Dickinson with Job
A few months ago, a Mynah hatchling fell out of its nest in one of our carport rafters. When we found it, it was lying awkwardly on the ground, clearly hurt beyond our capacity to heal. Nonetheless, my kids insisted...
An Interview with Andrew Peterson About “The Wingfeather Saga”
One of the few highlights of 2020 for me has been getting to read the Wingfeather Saga to my kids. It gave us a bedtime routine and something to look forward to every night for several months as we made...
Radio Theatre and the Problem of Evangelical Art
I. Embed from Getty Images Either you’ve never heard the name John Avery Whittaker, or you recognize it like an old friend’s. In fact, his friends call him Whit. You’ll like him immediately, and the more you learn about his...
An Appeal from a Christian Liberal Arts University President
According to legend, thousands of years ago the mighty King Croesus of Lydia consulted with the oracle of Delphi to determine whether he should battle the great Persian Empire. The oracle famously replied, “If Croesus goes to war he will...
The Dust Bowl, Remembered
In clean, cool air the morning after a thunderstorm, while blazing pink and golden light spills over the horizon before becoming a deep cerulean crown over a sweltering summer afternoon, it is difficult to imagine the conditions in Texas only...
Southern Guilt, Southern Gospel
“Well, I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt / The beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert. / Then I fumbled in my closet through...
Hansel & Gretel Disenchanted: A Response to Eugene McCarraher’s “The Enchantments of Mammon”
We know the story. There wasn’t enough to eat. The children had been turned out to fend for themselves, and had, hungry, found a gingerbread house to snack on. The gingerbread boys and girls outside the house were good advertising....