Late at night and sometimes in the middle of the night I listen to sport-talk radio as a distraction, so I can sleep. Sports-talk radio is usually inconsequential and it works. Sometimes, however, real life intrudes into Nebraska football talk. That happened . . . Continue reading →
Culture Stuff
The Power Of The Fear Of Social Isolation
The elites who wield politically correct agendas – whether in academia, in the media, or in Hollywood — know these social dynamics very well. They understand your fear of social isolation perhaps better than you do yourself. How else could they manipulate . . . Continue reading →
The God Complex Of Social Elites
If nothing else, Dylan Farrow’s letter is a wake-up call. It’s time for us to pour a lot of cold water on the notion that the elites – those controlling the media, Hollywood, politics, and academia — are entitled to a separate . . . Continue reading →
Stupid Myths About Creativity
The belief that there exists some kind of deep and invisible connection between artistic creativity and addiction (or mental illness) is one of the most destructive and most stupid of our contemporary myths. —Kevin D. Williamson, “Glamour Junkies”
And Now For Something Completely Different: Pansexuality
Do you remember a time when politicians were admired for their actions? [Insert sound of crickets chirping here] Texas State Representative Mary Gonzalez is an admirable person. She is the first openly pansexaul politician in American history. If you’re unfamiliar with the . . . Continue reading →
No One Really Turns 5-Year Olds Loose To Save The World
This tribalism is damaging to children. Young people long to belong to something bigger than themselves (and this means bigger than their own generation). Children need community, structure, guidance, and history. In short, they need to belong to a culture instead of . . . Continue reading →
Ben Is Speaking Up About Religious Liberty
An Insurance Company With A Navy
Most of us were taught that government exists to provide for the common defense—a military and a social-safety net—but the actual budgets show that our government has become a big insurance company that also runs a navy. Read more» —Ben Sasse January . . . Continue reading →
Millennial Confusion About Masculinity
In unguarded moments, the young men I work with acknowledge their disengagement, and more than that, they articulate a confusion and even ambivalence about what it means to be a man. They can make jokes about traditional male identity until the cows . . . Continue reading →
A Peevish, Grudging Rancor Against Men
A peevish, grudging rancor against men has been one of the most unpalatable and unjust features of second- and third-wave feminism. Men’s faults, failings and foibles have been seized on and magnified into gruesome bills of indictment. Ideologue professors at our leading . . . Continue reading →
My Favorite Atheist Lesbian Author: A Case Study In Providence
I first encountered Camille Paglia in 1991, just after she had published the essay, “The Joy of Presbyterian Sex.” Blame Bob Godfrey. I was pastoring a church in Kansas City and happened to be visiting Escondido and stopped by Bob’s office. He . . . Continue reading →
Trust, Community, And Life (UPDATED)
For a long time I’ve sensed that something important has changed in our culture. It’s been hard to know, however, what to make of these perceptions and intuitions. When I was a boy, when someone came to the door, we invited them . . . Continue reading →
Huxley: Existentialism Was Just A Cover For Free Sex
For myself, as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. . . . Continue reading →
Fifty Years Ago
The Collapse Of The Therapeutic Revolution
In the end therapeutic revolution appears to have gotten one thing terribly wrong. And that one thing is its opening premise: the reduction of the moral to therapeutic. Wilfrid McClay | “The Family That Shoulds Together,” The Hedgehog Review 15 (2013) (via . . . Continue reading →
And Now For Something Completely Different: Football, Teamwork, And Grace
Political Pluralism And Public Prayer
When we allow evangelicals to pray as evangelicals, Catholics to pray as Catholics, Muslims to pray as Muslims, Jews to pray as Jews, we are not undermining political pluralism in our democracy, we’re upholding it. That’s why these prayers are not an . . . Continue reading →
An Aggressively Inarticulate Generation
(HT: Sung Yeo)
Mortimer Adler On How To Read A Book (And Why)
Few books are as needed today as Mortimer Adler’s How To Read A Book. It might be an encouragement, however, before you read, or while you’re between chapters, to watch Adler and Charles Van Doren talk about different ways to read and . . . Continue reading →
The Irony Of The Coming Dark Age (Updated Again)
The old schoolbook story of the middle ages describes the entire period as the “dark ages.” Of course that’s rubbish. There was a period of chaos in the early medieval period but there were also periods of remarkable learning and the renewal . . . Continue reading →








