To everyone who got exercised about the “Vatican’s” new so-called “list of deadly sins” for the modern age, I have some good news—or bad news, if you’re a jaded secularist looking to pick a fight: The Vatican didn’t publish anything of the kind. In ...
Yesterday I drew on the Niall Ferguson’s latest history of the 20th century to show how two vaunted alternatives to liberal capitalism—socialism (the fetish of class) and tribalism (the fetish of race)—all but drowned the Eurasian land mass in innocent blood. Each ideological ...
Is ethno-nationalism a modern disease? Is it an inevitable product of human nature subjected to modern conditions, and therefore something we have to accommodate, despite the ugly costs it imposes? A necessary evil? The most reliable foundation for an enduring polity in a post-dynastic age? ...
Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York, is clearly as worried as I am about the viciously anti-Christian legislation being backed by the abortionists’ best friend, NY Gov. Spitzer—which would force religious hospitals, social service agencies, and even schools to cooperate in the ...
The role of Cassandra is classically a thankless one. Point to danger signs too early, and you’re dismissed as a nut. Wait until it’s obvious, and you’re too late. You can’t win, so you might as well tell the truth: It’s distinctly ominous how many government agencies, ...
My post last week opposing "unselfishness" as a modern, secular liberal perversion of Christian ethics provoked quite a bit of comment, on this site and others. One poster, Kari Konkola (see the comments thread here) helpfully supplied a Puritan account of the meaning of the virtue of ...
This past fall, I held an informal poll of the students at the first-rate liberal arts college where I’m privileged to teach, asking them to choose between two presidential candidates: John Calvin or Niccolo Machiavelli. Their responses were uniformly interesting, as I’d expected. I ...
Conditions in the new Iraq continue to get worse for that country’s dwindling Christian population. On Friday, February 29, 2008 terrorists kidnapped Paulos Faraj Rahho archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, and killed three of his assistants. We still ...
Sen. John McCain is facing questions about his close ties to Rev. John Hagee (pictured here with McCain, whom he has endorsed for President). Hagee is leader of the controversial <embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/uViQ0hVV57Q” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” ...
With the passing of William F. Buckley I now feel officially old. Like thousands of modern conservatives, I grew up on Buckley. Each Sunday, I would make sure to be at home for Firing Line, to watch him genially make mincemeat of the likes of Harriet Pilpel—one of the generation of nice old ...
