Month: September 2018

how do we get the people we need?

Alan Jacobs is, as usual, correct: So a key question arises: If you need people who are sufficiently skilled in negotiating the liberal order to work effectively within it, but also committed to its transformation, and who can sustain that difficult balance...

/ September 28, 2018

the college pipeline is not working for people

This post from the Institute of Family Studies hammers home what I think is a really important point about college: High school graduates enroll in college at higher rates than they used to, but that has not translated to a surge in...

/ September 27, 2018

men not at work

Senator Mike Lee’s office has been doing fantastic work investigating America’s declining social capital, and this report on men out of the workforce has a lot to chew on: We confirm research by other scholars that a large number of...

/ September 26, 2018

natural law and common grace

I really appreciated this piece from Jordan Ballor and J. Daryl Charles on natural law and common grace. In particular, I liked the fact that they don’t take “natural law” further than it can go — it’s a “recognition of...

/ September 25, 2018

could a Christian political party be… good?

Bryan McGraw delivers a great history lesson about Christian political parties in Europe and the promise such a party might hold for us in America. I’d love to see him discuss the American Solidarity Party in a follow-up, since that’s the...

/ September 24, 2018

“It’s not like they ask us.”

This story by Elaina Plott about guns and the people who use them is really insightful: That the broader population has transposed the attitudes of people like Bennett onto most gun owners is understandable. Popular discourse is given to extremes....

/ September 21, 2018

Africa as antidote

Melani McAlister has an incisive interview with David Swartz in Christianity Today on her new book, The Kingdom of God Has No Borders: A Global History of American Evangelicals: What do you mean when you describe Americans as “enchanted” by...

/ September 20, 2018

Andy Gullahorn, “Everything As It Should Be”

I really liked Andy Gullahorn’s last album, and I really like this one. They’re not all that different — honestly, does a new album need to be different in order to be good? — but they’re worth listening to. I was...

/ September 19, 2018

“Nothing that is given is valued.”

You know how when someone is rubbing your back because it’s sore and they find the exact spot that hurts and press on it and you saw “YEOW!” because it hurts but also because they found it? That’s what I felt like reading...

/ September 18, 2018

God and public schools

Like Emily Hubbard, I grew up in a conservative Christian milieu that thought public schools were a moral cesspool where I would be exposed to drugs, sex, and possibly even evolutionary theory. And now she sends her kids to a...

/ September 17, 2018