Three Notes on the Bulwark
The good folks over at The Weekly Standard deserve a ton of credit for their fast work in relaunching a new publication, The Bulwark, in the aftermath of their untimely shuttering last month. What follows will be mostly critical so I want...
A Quick Thought on “Sacramental” Language
Derek has a good post offering some needed pushback to the growing usage of ‘sacramental’ language amongst some evangelicals. The problem, in short, is that sacraments are a very particular thing with a particular function in the Christian life and...
Reading Plans in 2019
One of the things you will become aware of very quickly when you begin writing a book is that you know nothing. (The next phase is becoming aware of the fact that you are a fraud.)
He Saw Our Darkness
This piece on Johnny Cash is fantastic: The tragic, doleful Cash had returned. On his own compositions and covers, he sang of a cold-blooded killer haunted by his deeds, a convict known only by the number tattooed on his neck,...
Consent and Trust
From the NYT: For our first date, he took an Uber to my apartment through a winter storm. As the snow fell outside, we sat close on my couch while he talked touchingly about poetry. Two hours in, I was hoping...
Rosaria Butterfield and Evading the Issues
Jeremy Erickson: Rosaria Butterfield has not to my knowledge spoken recently about whether or not she continues to experience sexual temptation towards other women. People talk about her as a “former lesbian,” and as long as everything is defined in...
Football and the Political Act of Prayer
Paul Putz: Before the whistle blows for the first time this year and the football goes tumbling through the air, there will be an act dripping with political significance. It will come even before the singer takes the field and...
The Hedonism of Reading Good Books
E. J. Hutchinson at TAC: “I hate to read new books.” So begins William Hazlitt’s essay “On Reading Old Books.” The title will remind readers of C.S. Lewis’s similarly named but much more well known essay “On the Reading of...
Dealing with Burnout Like a Christian
Chris Krycho: For the last several months, I’ve been experiencing what I initially described as mild burnout. I’m not sure how mild it is at this point, but I’m definitely still experiencing it. As a result, I’m still thinking about how to mitigate...
How Air Conditioning Created the Modern City
From The Guardian: Once, when I was staying in Houston, Texas, my host was showing me round her house. It included a mighty fireplace. “How often does it get cold enough to light a fire?” I asked, as what little I...