Is all human community parasitic?
That is the claim made by Dan Hugger in a recent post at the Acton Institute. Hugger, picking up on the French-Ahmari debate, argued that my framing of the debate—that liberalism ultimately fails because it both relies on other social...
Mere O News (and a Book Perk!)
I just posted this on the Patreon page for Mere O and wanted to cross-post here to make sure everyone saw it. Hey all, I have a few news items to share with y’all: First: My book will be out...
Martin Bucer’s Anti-Poverty Program
In his book De Regno Christi, Martin Bucer outlines his vision of a Christian society, including details on how he believes such a society should handle questions of poverty. The basic vision can be sketched out as follows:
Should We Expand the Scope of the Abortion Debate?
One of the perennial questions amongst pro-lifers concerns the wisdom of expanding the definition of “pro-life” to encompass political issues beyond the question of legalized abortion. On the one hand, we’ve published several pieces at Mere O over the years...
What makes a person or theological statement “individualistic”?
I wanted to put up a quick post to deal with an objection that had been raised to John Shelton’s post over on the main site. In his post, Shelton argued that there is a strong individualistic streak to American...
Is Burnout a Generational Issue or a Class Issue?
If you haven’t yet, please do read Anne Helen Peterson’s excellent Buzzfeed essay on millennials and burnout. My first reaction to the essay was to agree with nearly every word of it and pass it on to others. But after...
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,...