Letter to a Christian Protester
Dear Brutus, You have written to me asking my opinion on the recent protests and acts of civil disobedience in your community. Although our national politics would probably be much healthier on the whole if we each confined ourselves to...
Consciences, Covid, and Credibility: A Response to Doug Wilson
As pretty much anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock now knows, John MacArthur and Grace Community Church made a big stir a couple weeks ago by not merely declaring their intention to defy California Covid-19 restrictions, but also...
Do We Still Belong Together? Lessons from Roger Scruton
In recent weeks, I’ve been undertaking a much-belated crash course in Roger Scruton’s political writings. I am currently working my way through How to Be a Conservative (Continuum, 2017), and would recommend it almost without qualification (except for his discussions of religion...
To Mask or Not to Mask? Lessons from the 16th Century
Here in my native Virginia, our governor issued an executive order effective May 29, requiring the wearing of masks in any public indoor setting, including church services. My own congregation, and most that I am acquainted with, cheerfully complied, but...
A Government of Force or a Government of Laws?
Recent events here in America have increasingly exposed the rapid collapse of the idea of authority in late modernity. Authority, as Oliver O’Donovan has frequently noted, has a mysterious, elusive quality, and it can disappear in a hurry. This is...
“Great Danger of Fatal Extremes”: Hamilton on Revolutionary Excess
One of the defining features of political conservatism is a fierce commitment to the principle that the ends do not justify the means. Whenever there is popular anger at some injustice, real or imagined, the advocates of change will try...
How (Not) to Navigate Coronavirus Conflicts in the Church
The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked plenty of havoc on healthcare systems and economies around the globe, but what keeps me up at night is worries about what it might do to the church. Weeks of missed worship services, of course,...
Coronavirus and The Myopia of American Exceptionalism
On March 4, as Covid-19 was spreading rapidly through parts of the US, but remained almost untraceable for lack of testing kits, a friend of mine texted me somberly, “this has made me soberly reflect on the fact that for...