Category: Social Trends
Twitter Is Like Elizabeth Bennet’s Meryton
I’m quite pleased to feature this piece from Mere Fidelity contributor Alastair Roberts today. You can follow him on Twitter here or read his personal blog here. ‘A Truth Universally Acknowledged…’ In a 1997 article on communal judgment in Pride...
Our Culture of Reading and the End of Dialogue: An Essay
Christians are a people of the book, a people whose lives are formed and shaped by their encounters and interactions with a God whose works have been manifested in the words that bear witness to them. The early Christians understood...
What Zlatan Ibrahimovic Taught Me About Enchantment
It’s a commonplace amongst a certain type of trad conservative to talk about the need to “re-enchant” our understanding of the world. What they usually mean by this is some version of an argument, influenced deeply by Charles Taylor, that...
The Death of Adulthood
We’ve reached the end of adulthood in America according to AO Scott. Or at least of the patriarchal version of it, anyway, which Scott sees in three paradigmatic dramas of our era—Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Sopranos, whose protagonists...
Respectability and the Plausibility of Orthodoxy
One point that deserves special mention with the ongoing conversation about “respectable” Christianity concerns the plausibility of “orthodoxy” in the minds of many of our non-Christian neighbors. One of the unique challenges facing Christianity in the coming years is that the...
Beyond the Pink Police State: Community Health Workers
James Poulos’ recent exploration of what he dubs the Pink Police State lays out an argument that is clear, even if not immediately accessible: our obsession with health coincides with a desire for impulsivity that has not only led to...
Belated thoughts on the Duck Dynasty Kerfuffle
The kerfuffle that Phil Robertson stirred up is now over, and as in all such matters it’s hard to avoid the sense that we are all the worse for it. Most everyone I know has reached the point of total...
Selfie Deception
What and how we consume says a lot about what we value. And what and how we consume has never been more public. Thanks to the broadcasting devices in our pockets and the social network audiences always just a few...
One More on Chick-Fil-A, with John Corvino
I’ve had company in town and have been frantically putting together last-second arrangements for our trip across the ocean, so things have been a little quiet for me. But this week John Corvino and I decided to tag-team the Chick-Fil-A...
Friendship, Opposition, and Chick-Fil-A
I’ve had just about enough Chick-Fil-A over the past week to last more than a lifetime, and I didn’t even visit the restaurant today (more on that in a minute). I’ve been reading and digesting, trying to nail down precisely...