Category: History
W. E. B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk–Chapter 3
We’re continuing our exploration of Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk today with a brief overview of chapter three. Chapter three may well be one of the most timely in the entire book. Though primarily about Booker T. Washington, the issues that...
W. E. B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk–Chapter 2 Overview
One of the main points Du Bois is developing throughout his book is that, to quote him directly, “the defining problem of the 20th century [was] the color line.”
Polis/Counter-polis: On the Civic Benedict Option
October 2016 was a simpler, more innocent time. We were all youths, wet behind the ears; we look back at ourselves with a kind of bemused affection. Rod Dreher assumed, surely—we all assumed—that Hillary Clinton would win in November, that...
Theologians Were Arguing About the Benedict Option 35 Years Ago
There’s been quite a bit of controversy lately. Perhaps you’ve heard about it. The uproar surrounds a set of proposals regarding the state of American society and the character of the church in its midst. Let me give you some...
The “New Alarmism” is not new and is not alarmism.
When asked about the Holy Roman Empire the French philosophe Voltaire once quipped that said empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. I had something like that thought while reading Dr. James K. A. Smith’s piece for the...
On Presidential Politics and Evangelical Cultural Clout
If you’ll indulge me, I’m going to circle back around to Emma Green’s review of Rod’s book while also linking it to Katelyn Beaty’s review of the same published earlier this week in the Washington Post.
How to Deal With Erratic Corpulent Ginger Authoritarian Much-Married Rulers: Options for Christians in Public Life
Note: Some of these Options are better than others. The Wolsey Option Through an excess of personal ambition, tie your whole career to the favor of an unpredictable and potentially vicious master. Lose his favor anyway. The Cromwell Option Facilitate...
Are Religious Liberty Restrictions God’s Judgment on Racism?
“I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. – Amos 4:6 I did a number of medical school rotations in...
Reviewing Nancy Isenberg’s “White Trash”
This guest review is by Dr. Miles Smith. In 2014 The King’s College professor Anthony Bradley wrote an article on the plight of poor whites for World Magazine. That Bradley, an African American, first raised the issue seems strange, but...
Hamilton, Meritocracy, and Patriotism
I held out for as long as I could. My resistance was sustained chiefly by a stubborn contrarianism that resists as many trends as possible, particularly those that can be credibly connected to New York City, Washington, San Francisco, or Los...