God’s holy Law says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all he law and . . . Continue reading →
Culture Stuff
Why It Is Reasonable Not To Send Your Children To Public School
The world has changed quite a bit since I entered Dundee Elementary in 1965–66. No-fault divorce did not yet exist. Two-parent families were the norm. Abortion had not yet been legalized. The late-modern drug culture had not yet exploded. WWII had been . . . Continue reading →
John Dewey’s Plan For Your Children
[John Dewey] doesn’t want the school any longer to be in the handmaiden role, aiding parents in their goal of passing literacy and tradition and deferred gratification on to the their progeny. . . [H]is schools now have the socially transforming purpose . . . Continue reading →
“Biased Facts,” Objective Reality, The Reformation, And The Resurrection
A few days ago someone, somewhere on social media, in objection to something I wrote, used the arresting expression “biased facts.” I learned from the Dutch Reformed philosophical theologian Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987) that there are no such things as uninterpreted facts . . . Continue reading →
Walter Cronkite In 1972: Coming Ice Age!
Guerrilla, Gorilla, And The Idiot Greek Chorus
Eleven years ago the film Idiocracy was released. I have only seen portions. I am not a great fan of the comedy of errors. It is difficult for me to watch Seinfeld because of the George Costanza character. Jason Alexander did a . . . Continue reading →
In The Age Of Anxiety
Historians like to characterize periods of time. The 16th century is “The Age of Reformation” or “The Early Modern Period.” The 18th century is “The Age of Enlightenment” and 19th century is “The Industrial Age” or “The Age of Westward Expansion.” The . . . Continue reading →
Three Things I Learned In 2015
For me it has been an odd year. I spent a good bit of it on the road between San Diego, where I live and work, and Nebraska, where family lives. That has produced a greater sense of dislocation than usual. Professionally, . . . Continue reading →
Half-Way Down The Slippery Slope
Building on the “born-that-way” narrative popularized by the LBGT lobby, this pedophile wants his sexuality (identity) to be recognized as normal. This article does not appear in some out-of-the-way, obscure publication but in Salon.com It almost seems like a parody such as . . . Continue reading →
What’s Wrong With Participation Trophies?
Pay No Attention To That Slippery Slope Behind The Curtain
The Emory Law Journal has a symposium on the constitution and polygamous marriage. Some articles are on whether the government may criminalize adults entering into polygamous religious marriages, even when the parties aren’t claiming any legal rights stemming from such a marriage. . . . Continue reading →
Oppression Real And Imagined
The Untold Victims Of The Sexual Revolution
There is nothing more painful for a daughter than to watch your dad put on a bra or have him wear your clothes. No daughter should have to place her clothes in her dresser drawers by a code so she can know . . . Continue reading →
The Thrill Is Gone
Please Tell Me These Are Actors And Not Voters
O’Rourke: Boomers As Perpetual Teens
“Don’t ever change!” we wrote in each other’s high school yearbooks. “Stay just the way you are!” What strange valedictions to give ourselves on the threshold of life. Imagine if we had obeyed them, and now everyone possessed the resolute solipsism of . . . Continue reading →
Modernity: The Story Without Its Author
If there is little mystery about where the West got its faith in a narratable world, neither is there much mystery about how the West has lost this faith. The entire project of the Enlightenment was to maintain realist faith while declaring . . . Continue reading →
What American Journalists Once Did
How We Measure “Success”
Because of the obsession with short-term results that may be contained with the terms and demands of a single life, the interest of community is displaced by the interest of career. The careerist teacher judges himself, and is judged by his colleagues, . . . Continue reading →
A Dad Shows Up In Pop Media
Dad hasn’t fared well in pop culture for a long time. I suppose there have been a few positive portrayals of father in pop culture in recent decades but it isn’t easy to think of them. Dad did reasonably well in the . . . Continue reading →