Executioner
So Much for that Nobel Peace Prize! How Anti-War Obama has Become Lord High Executioner by Toby Harnden. They call them the ‘Terror Tuesday’ meetings. Held in the Situation Room in the bowels of the White House, they are chaired [...]
Windows 8
Fear and Loathing and Windows 8 (Or: Why Windows 8 Scares Me — and Should Scare You Too) by Michael Mace. I was very excited when I saw the first demos of Windows 8. After years of settling for mediocre [...]
Advice
The path I followed in becoming a Christian. Achieving Happiness: Advice from Kierkegaard by Michael W. Austin. The Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855) believed that philosophy should focus on deep questions related to God, humanity, ethics, and meaning in life. [...]
Moral Case
Here’s an excerpt (pdf) from Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by Robert Sirico.
Doom?
Christianity is Not for Quitters by William Doino Jr. At his famous Harvard Commencement address in 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn remarked, “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West.” Thirty-five years [...]
Good?
Would Paul Have Made a Good Evangelical? by Peter Enns. No. Even when you account for 2000 years of cultural differences between Paul and Evangelicalism, the answer is no. Why? Because Paul didn’t treat the Bible the way mainstream Evangelicalism [...]
Attempt
The Attempted Unitarian Universalization of The United Methodist Church by John Lomperis. One of the most striking contrasts for me to observe between mainline-denominationally-affiliated theological liberals in “safer” environments like Harvard Divinity School (where I earned my MDiv) vs. in [...]
End
The End of Counterinsurgency by George Friedman. The U.S. military for years has debated the utility of counterinsurgency operations. Drawing from a sentiment that harkens back to the Vietnam War, many within the military have long opposed counterinsurgency operations. Others [...]
Taylor
From Christian Punk Rocker to Agnostic Professor: An Interview With Ojo Taylor by Bert Montgomery. See here.
Fourth Revolution
Future Tense, X: The Fourth Revolution by James Piereson. The question today, then, is whether or not the party system formed in the 1930s and 1940s is about to exhaust itself in a new upheaval that will lead to some [...]
Folly
The Folly of Recall Elections by Jonah Goldberg. It should surprise no one that I’m opposed to the recall of Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor whose fate will be decided Tuesday. But that’s only in part because I support what [...]
Rethinking Religion
Here’s an excerpt from Rethinking Religion and World Affairs, ed. by Timothy Samuel Shah, Alfred Stepan, and Monica Duffy Toft.
Baccalaureate Remarks
“Don’t Eat Fortune’s Cookie” by Michael Lewis. See here. (h/t VC)
Extremism?
Jay Cost reviews It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein.
The Stakes
WSJ: The Wisconsin Recall Stakes A single election rarely determines a democracy’s fate, but some matter more than others. Tuesday’s recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is one that matters a great deal because it will test whether taxpayers [...]
Nonbelievers
Nonbelievers Who Aren’t Atheists? by David Niose. If you don’t believe in any gods, you are an atheist, right? This definition seems pretty basic, not the kind of material that requires an advanced degree in theology to understand. But apparently [...]
Lessons
Future Tense, XI: The Lessons of Culture by Roger Kimball. On culture’s role in the economy of life and the fragility of civilization. More.
40 Years
Forty Years of Originalism by Joel Alicea. In the immediate aftermath of his 2010 election as the newest senator from Utah, Mike Lee spoke before a crowd of enthusiastic practitioners, scholars, and students at the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention. [...]
Limits
Abortion and the Limits of Philosophy by Jon A. Shields. Unlike civil rights advocates of the 1960s, pro-life and pro-choice activists can be ambivalent about their causes because they are torn between their reason and their sentiments. More at PD.
Walid
Dawud Walid, the Quran and Jews by Daniel E. Rogell. The Council of American Islamic Relations [CAIR] may tout itself as an “organization that challenges stereotypes of Islam and Muslims,” and as group that was formed “to challenge anti-Muslim discrimination [...]