Most people only know half of Stephen Decatur’s famous toast — “my country, right or wrong.” But the whole thing was much more admirable. “My country, may she always be right. But my country, right or wrong.” The abbreviated version makes it sound like national interest is the only standard that a full-tilt patriot would …
Our New Bird Feeder
The besetting sin of conservatives who see what is going on around us is the sin of being strident and shrill. The besetting sin of most other conservatives is to react against that shrillness by adopting a posture of cluelessness. For has not experience shown us that as soon as someone gets a clue, they …
Redemptive/Historical Embarrassment
When we look at what is happening to the culture around us, and we recognize that so much of the destruction is avoidable, and we consider also the fact that the people implementing these suicidal policies are not idiots — and indeed exhibit an intelligence of the highest order in other areas, the conclusion appears …
Maybe We Could Quit in the Third Quarter
This recent collection of quotes basically present an interesting question to us. What are the implications of Christendom being, as the authors argue, “done”? Well, if you are a Christian, and Christendom really is done, then the obvious answer is to rebuild it. Right? Frost and Hirsch argue that this situation “will require that we …
Fill In Details Later
The other day Nancy and I spent a lot of time at Logos for grandparents day. The kids had their projects out, we saw some impressive class exercises, and so on. My grandson Knox had an impressive statement about the Reformation, at a sixth grade level, along with a poem he had written about Luther. …
Seven Memes for Keeping Christians in their Place
Among other things, a meme is a little bit of a verbal virus that gets passed around in a culture, like the common cold. After it gets passed around enough, people start to think it is the received wisdom. That said, here are seven memes that are common in our culture, and which have been …
War! What Is It Good For? Absolutely . . . Actually It Does Do Some Good Things
I got a thoughtful letter from a friend asking about the war motif that runs through a bunch of our stuff here in Moscow. My dad’s formative book is called Principles of War. There is the Canon Press tag “Publishing Is Warfare” that we have had around here for a few decades now. There is …
You Know, Stuff
There is a sense in which (I have argued) every thoughtful Christian must be a conservative. The Holy Spirit has done a lot thus far in the history of our people, and we must live up to what we have already attained. We must conserve it. There is another sense in which we are to …
Wiener Schnitzel is UnAmerican
Details are just beginning to emerge about some American atrocities in Afghanistan. Some of the individuals accused are already on trial, which is at it should be. The presenting problem for the politicos and spin doctors in this situation appears to be the fact that there are allegedly supposed to be a multitude of photographs …
Like Pirates on the Beach
I received a question from a reader who agreed with my general thinking about government robberies, but wondered if I believed that any taxation whatever amounted to theft. And if I thought that some taxation was, and some was not, then how to tell the difference? Is it simply done on the basis of what …