In recent years we have heard how Christianity, and even Pentecostalism, seem to be losing their grip on the working classes, at least in white American communities. Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, Charles Murray, who wrote Coming Apart, and […]
Many of us are trying to figure out what God is trying to do by allowing this Coronavirus plague to circulate around the world so dramatically. As I thought about this, I was reminded of a passage in Luke’s Gospel […]
In the classical Christian church we hear much about our identity in Christ. We also have a host of other identities or roles: parent or child in a family; worker in or owner of an organization; a particular church, denomination, […]
The little known [in the States] Canadian sociologist Michael Adams has suggested a new classification of American values, in terms of a four-way box. The culture wars of the era after Nixon and before Trump were primarily between the Status […]
This essay summarizes some of Francis Fukuyama’s historical perspective and insights on the problem ‘patrimonialism’ and its effect on society. I briefly suggest some ways to address patrimonialism, and also identify factors that shape patrimonialism in California and elsewhere. According […]
C.S. Lewis, in an essay called “What Christmas Means to Me,” declared that there are three Christmases that are celebrated simultaneously: the incarnation of God the Son in the person of Jesus Christ, the merrymaking around the solstice, and the […]
Here I affirm that most of the serious structural changes in society associated with the Baby Boomer generation were, in fact, set in place by people far older. The Boomers, however, certainly took advantage of them! And we, on the […]
A few cities have recently talked of having ‘Straight Pride’ parades. Whether their purpose is celebration or mockery I can’t say. Whatever the intention, I don’t know whether I could participate. About 95% of the population is ‘straight’ by nature, and […]
Recently in an airport, I saw and bought a rather provocative issue of Scientific American. The cover declared that humans ‘evolved’ to exercise, while the most similar forms of life – chimpanzees and bonobos – function very well as couch potatoes, according to […]
For a long time, we have spoken of elections, in which a President is not on the ballot, as ‘off-year elections’. I think the Founders would have been horrified by such a notion. The Congress, they would have thought, should […]