Quite an Aesthetic Treat

It is a tad exasperating, but then one recalls one’s Calvinism again, and everything’s okay. I refer, of course, to the questions of high theology that have now beset the contenders for the Republican nomination for president. I shall respond briefly (and with my customary moderation) by means of three basic points. First, the fracas …

Tatterdemalion Refugees and the New Jerusalem

Observers of American high places, American idolatries, tend to cluster in two groups — narrow and true, and broad and false. We need a third operating category, which I would describe as broad and true. Those idolatries would include consumerism, nationalism, paternalism — in short, pretty much all our isms. Those who reject the idolatries …