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 […]
Culture
Don’t Blame the Boomers for Everything
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 […]
The Problem with ‘Straight Pride’
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 […]
A Recent History of ‘Skinny Fat’ or How Fit Were People in the Old Days?
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 […]
On Political Trust and Media Attention
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 […]
Christianity and Science: Two Poles of a Biblical World View
In C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, in the essay “Miracles” we read this: The experience of a miracle in fact requires two conditions. First, we must believe in a normal stability of Nature, which means we must recognize […]
A ‘Protestant-ish’ Argument for Icons?
Is there an appropriate place for icons in the 21st Century Protestant Church? There’s nothing new about the debate regarding sacred images and iconography, but I’ve gained some recent insights on the subject. In chapter 13 of Diarmaid McCullough’s work, Christianity: […]
Why We Need Regionalism
In our time, politics and culture are increasingly oriented to the national scale on the one hand, and the immediate neighborhood on the other. A book, The Increasingly United States, by Daniel J. Hopkins, highlights this. However, in my view, besides […]
The USA: First World, Third World, or Western World?
The United States has always been somewhat ambiguous about whether its primary loyalty was to the European Western World or to the Western Hemisphere (i.e., the Americas). The Founders thought of themselves as upholding the rights of Englishmen, which they […]
Dick Dale: 1937-2019
I always thought of Dick Dale as a local phenomenon, but his recent death got national coverage. The most thorough and best article was one in The New Yorker, a magazine which might well have turned up its nose during […]