The Satmar Way of Life and Death Used to Be Our Way, Too by Armin Rosen
Society didn’t have to shut down in response to the pandemic. The pause in normal life was a human choice, made by human beings, who for the most part complied with what governments and medical experts demanded of them. COVID didn’t put life on hold—we did.
When faced with government or societal injunctions to deny basic functions of the faith, the church needs to stand up and not be ashamed.
Frederick Douglass’s American Identity Politics by Peter C. Myers
“No people can prosper,” Douglass reiterated late in life, “unless they have a home, or the hope of a home”—and “to have a home,” one “must have a country.” America, in Douglass’s abiding vision, was black Americans’ proper home, their only realistic alternative and also the locus of their highest ideals. By its white and black citizens together, America must be cherished and perfected as a genuine home for all, not merely by the accident and force of necessity but as an object of rational and sentimental identification. For Douglass as for Abraham Lincoln, their common country was, through it all, the last best hope of earth.
Wonderful reminder of what is good about America from a man who knew intimately what was bad.
A Biblical Critique of Secular Justice and Critical Theory by Timothy Keller
First, only biblical justice addresses all the concerns of justice found across the fragmented alternate views. Each secular theory of justice addresses one or some of the five facets of biblical justice mentioned above, but none addresses them all.
I love his well-reasoned analysis of secular social justice and the kind of justice the Bible calls us to.
For a century and a half or more, the American family gave the country the one thing it most dearly needed but was ill-suited to produce—a strong and self-governing citizenry. Alexander Hamilton famously wrote in Federalist 1 that the eyes of the world seemed to be on the young country to settle the question of whether human beings could govern themselves wisely through reflection and choice. If such self-governance were possible, the Founders knew that it would be because of the countless sacrifices of mother and fathers—but mothers in particular—who instructed their children in these democratic arts. A husband was generally expected to uphold public order, the woman to serve the goods of family and society. When joined together, man and woman together worked toward human flourishing. This complementarity of men and women was not viewed as unjust or exploitative. Indeed, the men and women of that earlier age would likely view their descendants as failing to understand the virtues of the liberal republican family and its indispensable role in fostering private and public happiness.
I love the insightfulness and appreciation for truth exhibited by this article.
Why Nobody is Systemically Racist by James Lindsay
Put straight, the concept of “systemic racism” is, generally speaking, a bad one. It does not add clarity; it obscures it. It does not foster healthy relationships or conversations about race; it produces the opposite. It does not encourage personal growth or “doing better”; it induces unnecessary guilt, shame, and moral confusion. It does not encourage genuine responsibility; it displaces it.
Brilliant and insightful analysis of "systemic racism" and its inherent fatal flaws.
My Brief Spell as an Activist by Lucy Kross Wallace
I wanted to believe that my suffering could be explained by some sinister, ubiquitous force of oppression, but the truth is messier and less gratifying. There were no lurking demons or plots against me, just genetic misfortune and a broken healthcare system and well-meaning but ultimately unhelpful clinicians. I am neither hero nor villain. The understanding that most things aren’t about me, that at the end of the day, I don’t matter much, has come as both a disappointment and a relief.
An extremely self-aware piece from someone who has come back from the brink of annihilation.
Breaking Things by Robert Henderson
The lack of stable families has contributed to the widespread mistrust of others and lack of social relationships among young people. It has, I believe, given rise to a sense of nihilism even in an era of relative material abundance, which has characterized some of the violent upheavals.
Family instability is destroying our culture and our nation.
Why Fukuyama was right all along by Aris Roussinos
In a world with no great causes, where all the grand passions and conflicts of the past have been settled, Fukuyama predicts, “if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.”
It turns out that we may not want the "end of history" after all.
Free Speech Absolutism Killed Free Speech By Tony Woodlief
We’re seeing free speech driven from campuses, in other words, because our unthinking commitment to it has kept us from constraining radicals who use their classrooms and administrative perches to persuade the young that freedom is a fiction.
Interesting take on Mill's idea that even the heretic should be allowed to speak. Woodlief says that no, some ideas need to be put to rest once and for all.
The Challenge of Marxism by Yoram Hazony
Simply put, the Marxist framework and democratic political theory are opposed to one another in principle. A Marxist cannot grant legitimacy to liberal or conservative points of view without giving up the heart of Marxist theory, which is that these points of view are inextricably bound up with systematic injustice and must be overthrown, by violence if necessary.
Excellent analysis of Marxism and the way it threatens liberal democracies.
Universities Abandon Reason for a False Idea of ‘Empowerment’ by Aaron Alexander Zubia
But a university that focuses on utility alone, without consideration of the value of pursuing truth for its own sake, will form students who are like-minded automatons rather than creative and independent thinkers. The complete instrumentalization of learning inevitably stifles free inquiry and tends toward politicization. Then, it tends toward indoctrination.
Universities are creating automatons, incapable of actual thought.
When George Washington Met Moses by John Berlau
What is undisputed, however, are the powerful messages of religious freedom and equality under the law from the Jewish congregation’s letter and Washington’s swift response. The letter dated August 17 states: “Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events) behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People — a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance — but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and immunities of Citizenship.”
I love this history of one of our greatest Americans and his commitment to religious freedom.
That is the claim Christians make on this Easter Sunday and on every Sunday: That God Himself became, for His own inexplicable reasons, a gradually dying animal like the rest of us, that He would offer His friendship to be abandoned by His friends, that He subjected himself to torture, death, and burial so that He could meet us in the silence of the tomb and in the silence beyond it, that the terrible silence of that place would not be final. Neither the little silence of our days nor the great silence at the end of them is the final word. Some people think of that as “comforting.” I suppose it depends on how you feel about silence.When Kevin Williamson is good, he's very, very good...
Thus Israel’s faith in creation, which is also the Church’s faith, carries with it a doctrine of providence. God has created the world, and he governs the world. This is the faith that breaks through Babylonian darkness and the fear of apocalypse. The Christian faces suffering differently because we see the Creator and creation through the Word made flesh, through Christ Crucified, through the hope of the Risen Lord who is our way and our end.A beautiful reminder...
The destructive nature of socialism comes not from its tendency to trample on democracy (though socialism often does trample on democracy) but from its total disregard for rights — rights that are, in the context of the United States and other liberal-democratic systems, beyond the reach of mere majorities. We have the Bill of Rights to protect freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the free exercise of religion, etc., not because we expect that majorities will reliably support and protect these rights but because we expect that majorities will be hostile to them.Great takedown of the the idea of Democratic Socialism.
Christian nationalism is not an attempt to requisition the state to teach Christian theology—it would be even less competent at this than it is at all other types of education. Neither is it in any way an incitement to the largely hypothetical violence over which the statement’s authors wring their hands.
It is simply American Christians who believe that their religion is true and their nation valuable contending for their own convictions about goodness, truth, and beauty rather than for others’. We are not “merging” our two identities, as the statement alleges, but holding onto both of them in everything that we do.
Far from destroying American democracy and religious liberty, Christian nationalism embodies the very same spirit that built that heritage of ours in the first place.Interesting take on a very controversial subject.
But politicians and environmentalists have other ideas. They’re doubling down on their mistakes by banning more plastic products and demanding alternatives that are more expensive, less convenient, and worse for the environment. Even experts familiar with the facts succumb to magical thinking. Yes, they acknowledge, we shouldn’t be exporting our plastic waste to Asia, but the solution is to recycle it at home. And yes, that’s impractical today, but everything will change after we create a “circular economy,” which merely requires a transformation of society. Guided by wise central planners, manufacturers will redesign their products and retool their factories so that everything can be reused or recycled, and consumers will painstakingly sort everything into just the right recycling bin, and we will all live happily ever after in a world with “zero waste.”This iconoclastic piece goes a long to explaining our outsized focus on "the environment."
Yet, her violence is not of the same kind as the superhero variety. She does describe the violence of the world, but she juxtaposes it with the grace of God. Like Joseph tells his brothers, what you meant for harm, God meant for good. Or, think of Jesus on the cross—the violence that we commit, God can work through for his redemptive purposes. Of course, we have to separate this reading of violence that then concludes violence is a good. It is not, but in a fallen world, violence is inevitable. What is not inevitable but miraculous is God’s grace, which does not let the violence be the end of the story. In O’Connor’s stories, grace always has the final word.I love this exploration of Flannery O'Connor and her use of violence to display God's grace.
If we truly want to improve outcomes for children, we must have the moral courage to measure student-achievement outcomes by family structure as routinely as we now do by race, class, and gender. We must create a more complete picture to understand the forces affecting student achievement. More important, we must expand solutions and interventions to assist young people in finding pathways to success, especially in vulnerable communities—and help people understand that they have power in their individual choices, and that their own decisions shape their destiny, despite structural barriers associated with race, class, and poverty. Educators should explicitly communicate to children of all races the importance of finishing one’s education, getting a job, and forging a strong and stable family life. And a strong and stable family life usually entails marriage before children.YES!!
Our meekness and gentleness are hard-earned, the product of centuries of intra-Christian conflict. The woke are naïve if they think rights stand on anything other than historical contingency. The idea of human rights was worked out by Pope Gregory’s canon lawyers. They are an historical artefact, like Christianity itself. Holland is not a believer, but he does want the West, and the woke, to acknowledge their on-going reliance on St. Paul’s belief that a crucified criminal was God.I love this argument stating how much modern civilization owes to Christianity.
In Curing Mad Truths, French philosopher Rémi Brague argues that the modern world is dying because it cannot answer the question of why it should live. To answer that question will require humility, according to Brague, because it is medieval truths about God, man, reason, and nature that are necessary for renewal.A needed book asking us to return to old things for our very survival.
When we discuss the problems confronting the country, we don’t talk about family enough. It feels too judgmental. Too uncomfortable. Maybe even too religious. But the blunt fact is that the nuclear family has been crumbling in slow motion for decades, and many of our other problems—with education, mental health, addiction, the quality of the labor force—stem from that crumbling. We’ve left behind the nuclear-family paradigm of 1955. For most people it’s not coming back. Americans are hungering to live in extended and forged families, in ways that are new and ancient at the same time.Brilliant analysis of the problem. Misguided solution.
Let’s say you’re a progressive. In fact, let’s say you are a progressive gay man in a gay marriage, with two adopted children. The civil rights version of the country is everything to you. Your whole way of life depends on it. How can you back a party or a politician who even wavers on it? Quite likely, your whole moral idea of yourself depends on it, too. You may have marched in gay pride parades carrying signs reading “Stop the Hate,” and you believe that people who opposed the campaign that made possible your way of life, your marriage, and your children, can only have done so for terrible reasons. You are on the side of the glorious marchers of Birmingham, and they are on the side of Bull Connor. To you, the other party is a party of bigots.
But say you’re a conservative person who goes to church, and your seven-year-old son is being taught about “gender fluidity” in first grade. There is no avenue for you to complain about this. You’ll be called a bigot at the very least. In fact, although you’re not a lawyer, you have a vague sense that you might get fired from your job, or fined, or that something else bad will happen. You also feel that this business has something to do with gay rights. “Sorry,” you ask, “when did I vote for this?” You begin to suspect that taking your voice away from you and taking your vote away from you is the main goal of these rights movements. To you, the other party is a party of totalitarians.
And that’s our current party system: the bigots versus the totalitarians.Fascinating piece getting to root of our political divisions. Andrew Sullivan addresses this argument here.
But as the movie ends, Pack points out that Thomas has written over 600 opinions—30 percent more than any other sitting Supreme Court Justice. And, taken together, they add up to a magnificent effort to restore the Framers’ Constitution, as perfected by the Bill of Rights, the Reconstruction Amendments, and the Nineteenth Amendment, unraveled by so much Supreme Court mischief.I definitely want to see this video and maybe show it in a history class as the life of Clarence Thomas is a perfect encapsulation of race relations in the 20th century.
If humans simply cannot help their tribal instincts, then a truly multicultural democracy has a big challenge ahead of it. The emotions triggered are so primal, that conflict, rather than any form of common ground, can spiral into a grinding cold civil war. And you can’t legislate or educate this away.Andrew Sullivan is always thoughtful and willing to buck the tide of liberal orthodoxy. His suggestion that the only cure for polarization in America is Jesus is simply jaw-dropping.
Surely, non-black people will feel a little guiltier about "the black thing," and internalize a reluctance to assign black people true culpability out of a sense that "they" have been through too much to be expected to perform at the level of other people. Few things more crisply demonstrate that the Civil Rights revolution has gone off the rails than that so many smart black people actually see this condescending poster child status as civic improvement.
Meanwhile, black people will internalize an even deeper sense that America is not great and doesn't like them, in the only country they will ever know. We are now to instruct black kids just a few years past diapers in this way of thinking—in studied despair over events far in the past, and a sense that it is more enlightened to think of yourself as a victim than as an actor. At no other point in human history have any people, under any degree of oppression, conceived of this kind of self-image as healthy—and no one could effectively argue that they were missing something that we have just figured out.John McWhorter has a real problem with the 1619 Project's focus on slavery as the foundation for American civilization.
If you can predict the system, then you can work the system. If you know the rules, then life is just a game. The fact that we never know how bad it could get continually reminds us how real this is—like a voice declaring “This is not a drill” when the alarm sounds. Everything is on the line.
This world is so bad that we can’t make complete sense of it. From our mortal vantage point, the connection between good behavior and the blessings that result from it are not self-evident. Only when virtue and self-interest are decoupled do we have the chance to legitimately, authentically choose virtue.
