The Soul-Saving Grace of Christian Detachment
If our pursuit of simplicity is not informed by the concept of Christian charity, focusing on mere minimalism will come up short. Too often, we cling to our “stuff” out of a desire for security. This failure to trust in God’s providence results in attachment to our earthly possessions that distracts us from more valuable eternal things: our faith and our duty to love and care for others.
Remembering Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus got to the central question facing us: Is it true that postmodern liberal societies are incapable of sustaining the religious values without which they could not have been born, and without which they cannot long function? Neuhaus was unwilling to surrender to that proposition. Neither should we be.
The Virtues of Judicial Self-Restraint
To faithfully apply the original public meaning of liberty protected by the Constitution—that is to say, to be a faithful originalist—one must acknowledge that both a contractarian view of individual liberty and a Whig view of the liberty to make laws were held by the founding generation.
The Problem Isn’t Technological: Rebuilding Women’s Reproductive Health
We have the scientific data we need to understand the relationship that a woman’s ovulation has to her overall health, and that healthy ovulatory patterns are a prerequisite to being fertile. We also have the data to teach women to observe their biomarkers, to check whether they ovulate in any given cycle, and to teach doctors to diagnose and treat the underlying abnormalities these observations reveal. So why don’t we?
Abortion: The Original Sin of the United Nations’ Human Rights Project
Indifference to human life in the prenatal phase is the original sin of the multilateral system, enshrined in its constituent agreements and diligently propagated throughout its institutions. Nothing short of a revolution in international policy will do if the human rights project is to be truly reclaimed.
Rewilding Civil Society
In conservation biology, a complex ecosystem whose health was slowly compromised over time can be revivified through a cascade of positive changes set in motion by reintroducing one of that system’s previous components. That’s exactly what today’s civil society needs, and conservative policymakers can help. We mustn’t shy away from using policy to achieve important ends—not just freedom, but the lessons, beliefs, and norms that make a free society succeed.
Protecting Sex From Liberalism
Our culture increasingly treats human bodies, sex, reproduction, and family structures as malleable to a radical degree. We need to recognize that the human body was chosen by God, in whose image and likeness we are made.
The Real Lesson of the Dust Bowl: Communities as Bulwarks Against Atomism and Statism
The alternative to the ideology of radical self-sufficiency is not reliance on the state, but the kind of community-based brotherly love and mutual aid that could be found even during midwestern American farmers’ darkest days. In the end, neither individuals nor governments, but communities, are the real vehicles for peace, harmony, and human flourishing.
The Supreme Court Should Protect Unborn Children with Down Syndrome
This Friday, the Court will decide whether to review a case about an Indiana law that prohibits abortions performed solely because the unborn child has Down Syndrome or another disability. Regardless of our nation’s polarized views on the policy and politics of abortion, it is clear that our Constitution does not include a right to abort children merely because of disfavored characteristics.
