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Matthew LoftusFamilyCulture
I very much appreciated this word from Hannah Anderson at Christ and Pop Culture about parenthood: The first thing we should do is realize that the level of control we feel is not as defined as it seems. To us, the […]
Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureEthics
Wilfred McClay has a beautiful and much-needed essay at Comment on the tension Christians experience between our calling to be gardeners and pilgrims: We plant, tend, and nourish gardens, gather and prune them, negotiating and harmonizing the resultants of nature’s forces. We […]
Matthew LoftusBibleCultureEthics
My own connection to Pittsburgh is only through friends; my kids have played on the playground across the street from the Tree of Life synagogue several times. I wanted to share a few pieces about the incident, starting with this […]
Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureEthicsHealth & Medicine
Tish Harrison Warren has a moving and beautiful essay at Christianity Today about her quest to honor the body of her unborn child: Our doctor wasn’t a jerk or insensitive to our grief. He was professional; we liked him. But he worked […]
Matthew LoftusCultureHistoryEducation
This interview with Alan Jacobs is full of all the things I love to think about! The new book has an “Interlude,” in which you point to “other pilgrims, other paths,” and one of the figures is Dorothy Day, an icon […]
Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureEconomics
I don’t wholly agree with everything that Oren Cass has to say here, but he has some very important observations and proposals in this essay about work, family, and political economy: Alongside stable political institutions that protect basic freedoms, family […]
Matthew LoftusFamilyCulture
My friend Breanna Randall shares some thought-provoking observations about community life in North America and Southeast Asia: It’s not my goal to communicate that my Southeast Asian neighborhood is objectively better than that of my North American counterparts (though I’ve […]
Matthew LoftusCultureHistoryEthics
If you’ve never read this essay on W.H. Auden’s quiet benefience, you’re in for a real treat: W.H. Auden had a secret life that his closest friends knew little or nothing about. Everything about it was generous and honorable. He […]
Matthew LoftusCulture
I felt like this piece from Clare Coffey about hope in the face of despair was very good, and I think you will, too: It is very possible that anxiety distorts perception of the world. It is also possible that […]
Matthew LoftusCultureEconomics
The Faith and Work movement set out to do something worthwhile: encouraging people to think of their work as a vocation honoring to God. Unfortunately, it has really focused on the vocations of the creative class and other upper-middle-class professionals […]
Matthew LoftusCulture
Shadi Hamid, who is one of the sharpest foreign policy commentators out there, has a really good interview in Providence magazine about Islam, liberalism, and pluralism: As for theological resources that conservatives might share across faiths, something I’ve been thinking about […]
Matthew LoftusFamilyCultureHistoryCriminal Justice
This well-reported story about TJ Smith, the Baltimore Police Department’s former spokesman who lost his half-brother to violence in the city (and just resigned!), is well worth reading and reflecting on: As for Smith, his failed struggle to lead Dionay […]