A father in my congregation has asked me what sort of questions a father should be asking a young man who wants to court his daughter. It is one thing to affirm that fathers should be active in protecting their daughters, but it is quite another to figure out what sort of specific questions are …
Just Do the Math
“Demographic decline and the unsustainability of the social-democratic state are closely related. In America, politicians upset about the federal deficit like to complain that we’re piling up debts our children and grandchildren will have to pay off. But in Europe the unaffordable entitlements are in even worse shape: there are no kids or grandkids to …
An Abandoned Battlefield
“If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world as Shelley says, then Christians dare not surrender poetry’s influence on the whole mind to the rock musicians or to avant garde nihilists” (Gene Edward Veith, Reading Between the Lines, p. 97).
Sins and Crimes
Before I go on to the next chapter of Crunchy Cons, let me address a question that has been implicit in what I have written thus far, and which has come up in the comments. One of my fundamental assumptions when it comes to public policy issues is the profound difference between a sin and …
Love and the State
“Buckle up. We care.” The sign seems so nice. But beneath such pleasant words along the highway, a worldview lurks. We have come to the point where we want the civil magistrate to love us and have a wonderful plan for our lives. The book of Proverbs warns that a fool sent on an errand …
Don’t Sugar Coat It. Just Tell Us.
“Let me put it in a slightly bigger nutshell: much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries” (Mark Steyn, America Alone, p. xiii).
A Forgotten Divorce
“Only after the invention of the printing press were poetry and music separated” (Gene Edward Veith, Reading Between the Lines, p. 79).
Let ‘Er Rip
The second chapter of Rod Dreher’s book is on consumerism. He begins by telling the appalling story of what the American people were urged by the president to do in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, which was, unbelievably, to “go shopping.” This was hardly a blood, sweat and tears exhortation. Instead of “we will …
Just Another Aisle in America
The British columnist Peter Hitchens recently commented on the phenomenon of “crunchy conservatism,” for which, he said, he “had a lot of time.” And so do I. I just finished reading Rod Dreher’s book Crunchy Cons, which was quite good. The subtitle is a bit more descriptive and helpful–“The New Conservative Counterculture and Its Return …
Dead and Gone
C.S. Lewis commented once that the present is, historically speaking, a “period.” This may seem too obvious to point out, but there will come a time when what is currently happening will no longer be happening. Several centuries into the future, various schoolchildren will be sweating out the details of our century as they frantically …