A couple years ago, when my nephew set off for college, his father (my brother-in-law) asked many of us to write a letter to our freshman selves stating what advice we’d give to ourselves if we could communicate through time. […]
The Arena
Ideas in progress: David McFarland on the teaching life
David McFarland leads a busy life, to use an understatement. He is a high school humanities teacher at Pacific Academy, an IB World School in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. He teaches Social Studies, IB History and Theory of Knowledge, and […]
Reflections on Russell Moore’s Losing Our Religion
If you have spent any time in evangelical circles, Russell Moore requires no introduction. A former professor and dean at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he was for eight years the President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious […]
Barbenheimer
More Barbenheimer, please. As the summer approached, people who look forward to movies noticed something: Barbie and Oppenheimer were opening on the same day. It seemed incongruous. This led to jokes. Then to memes. Then it became an event—Barbenheimer. People […]
A blessing of unicorns: a weekly roundup
This roundup concept was dubbed a unicorn at first, because it seemed to be a mythical beast, to be seen in the wild just once and never again. But here’s roundup #4, so perhaps it’s here to stay, at least […]
What I am reading: how Gloria Mark broke my heart
Ben Christenson writes from Virginia where he lives with his family and four pets. His writing has appeared in Front Porch Republic, The Federalist, and The Symbolic World among others. More at: benjaminchristenson.com I am a sucker for self-help books. You know the type: punchy […]
Who’s to blame?
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;They shall not be ashamed,But shall speak with their enemies in the […]
Historicism vs. Darwinism: which was more dangerous?
This essay previous ran on The Anxious Bench on 08/22/2023. Historicism was a greater challenge than Darwinism to some late 19th-Century evangelicals’ Christian faith. If you ask the average educated American Christian what new academic idea presented the greatest challenge […]
Killing the humanities at WVU: déjà vu all over again
When colleges dismantle the humanities, everyone suffers. The past several years have seen the dismantling of the humanities and the liberal arts in many a university and college in the U.S., including my now former employer, a regional comprehensive state […]
Growing Up Absurd: American ineptitude
This is the last in a series of three articles based on Growing Up Absurd, a 1960 classic of cultural criticism by Paul Goodman (here are Part I and Part II). While not all the book would have been written […]
A blessing of unicorns: a weekly roundup
Tim Larsen offered an important bit of unicorn-related trivia in a comment last week: a group of unicorns is called a blessing. This is the third unicorn roundup of eclectic reads from this week. But is it a blessing? *** […]
Remembering Brother Jerome (a good teacher)
Oh, did Brother Jerome drive me nuts. Jerome Cox, F.S.C., was a friend of my father’s from their days in the Christian Brothers junior seminary in Glencoe, Missouri. Their years together in the juniorate were formative for both of them, […]
What is a man?
Recently Tucker Carlson, the bow-tie wearing paragon of journalistic courage, interviewed professional misogynist Andrew Tate. If you have never heard of Andrew Tate, consider yourself lucky, although perhaps a bit ill-informed. If you have a daughter (I do) you’d better […]
Mark Thomas Edwards on Walter Lippmann
Mark Thomas Edwards is professor of US history and politics at Spring Arbor University in Michigan. He is the author of The Right of the Protestant Left: God’s Totalitarianism (2012) and Faith and Foreign Affairs in the American Century (2019). In the Spring of 2018, he […]
And a happy 40th anniversary to Robert Schuller’s Self-Esteem: The New Reformation
Historians love anniversaries. They give them an excuse for writing about what they want to write about anyway. This year is the 40th anniversary of a book that, unless you’re approaching retirement age you have likely never heard of, but […]
Growing Up Absurd and patriotism
This is part II of a three-part series of reflections on Paul Goodman’s 1960 bestseller Growing Up Absurd. If you have missed part I, you can read it here. A chief argument of Growing Up Absurd is that the United […]
Unicorn returns to the Arena: this week’s roundup
Is it still a unicorn if seen twice? No matter. Here is an utterly subjective list of some quirky and interesting reads this week. *** We begin in the land of all things pink, as Current ran its two-day forum […]
Ideas in progress: Colleen Vasconcellos on enslaved girls in Jamaica, Florida’s first Jewish senator, and burnout
This is Part II of Ideas in progress with Dr. Colleen Vasconcellos. This is also the more serious part of this interview. If you missed Part I, which has all the fun and funny content (Jell-O! Pirates! Pirates of the […]
Ideas in progress: Christopher J. Lane on teaching, vocation, and the stress of discerning a calling
Christopher J. Lane is Associate Professor of History at Christendom College (Front Royal, VA) and the author of Callings and Consequences: The Making of Catholic Vocational Cultural in Early Modern France. As you get ready to begin another academic year, […]
Ohio’s Issue 1: Pro-Lifers v. Democracy
Abortion opponents in Ohio just suffered a major defeat at the polls when voters rejected Issue 1 on August 8. It was a needless defeat that was entirely of their own making because abortion wasn’t even on the ballot. Instead, […]