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Nathanael Blake

Nathanael Blake, Ph.D. is a Fellow in the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His research interests include American political theory, Christian political thought, and the intersection of natural law and philosophical hermeneutics. His published scholarship has included work on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Alasdair MacIntyre, Russell Kirk and J.R.R. Tolkien.

What We Don’t Know: Does Gender Transition Improve the Lives of People with Gender Dysphoria?

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The studies assembled by the What We Know Project do not prove that transition is the best treatment for gender dysphoria, let alone that it should be the only permissible treatment. Rather, they show that the science is not settled.

We Were Parents

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When my wife and I mourned the miscarriage of our child, we were not mourning the loss of “potential life.” Hope for a potential life is what we had when we dreamed and prayed for pregnancy; hope for the potential of an existing life is what we had during the pregnancy. When our pregnancy ended, we mourned the loss of a life, of an irreplaceable human person whose particular genetic composition will never be repeated.

Outrage Mobs Might Be More Forgiving If They Believed in Hell

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Without a Christian framework, but with a strong sense of sin, seemingly minor wrongs and slights are seen as representative expressions of the injustices of society as a whole. But there is no one to grant absolution to the repentant, or to redeem the world from its fallen state. Each wrong is indelible, and so there is only sin and punishment. Forgiveness becomes impossible when every discrete wrong is bundled into a secularized version of original sin.

Rémi Brague’s Bleak but Brilliant Analysis of the Modern Project

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According to Rémi Brague, the dialectic of modernity results in a paradox. Man is both the conquering lord of nature and a part of nature to be controlled. His well-being is the purpose of the modern project, which simultaneously places his distinct dignity in doubt.

Living With Morals: A Review of The Fall of Gondolin

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Tolkien not only imagined heroes, glory, and splendor for us, but depicted hope after ruin and tragedy.

Self-Creation or God's Creation? Mistaken Identities and Nietzsche's Madman

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Those who believe they are living in a created cosmos inhabit a different psychological world from those living after the death of God. Those whose identity is rooted in the divine order of existence are divided from those whose identity is self-created.

What’s Scariest: Facebook, Google . . . or Us?

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Facebook or Google taking over the world is a distant, speculative fear. Being harassed, humiliated, shunned and unemployed are immediate fears. We increasingly live in a digital panopticon ruled as much by mobs as by the overseers.

The Dual Legitimation Crisis: Elitism, Populism, and Political Power

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Because liberal Western democracies are ostensibly rooted in the theory of popular sovereignty, elite disdain for the people creates another legitimation crisis—one that many fail to recognize. It is not simply that the people have lost confidence in the elites and their governance, or that the elites struggle to speak for (and even to) the people. Disdain for the people also unmoors elite authority.

The Romance of Ordinary Marriage

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It is fashionable to mock as bland and boring the ordinary men and women living out their married lives together, but they are often engaged in a quest far more challenging and romantic than anything the bohemian libertine will attempt.

The Consuming Self

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Americans increasingly identify with our consumption. When combined with political tribalism, the result is the increasing refusal to do business with members of other political or cultural groups. In the end, an identity based on consumption will only consume itself.

St. Louis’s Unholy War on Religious Liberty

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An ordinance passed in St. Louis, Missouri, prohibits discrimination in housing or employment on the basis of “reproductive health decisions.” Promoted as an anti-discrimination measure, the law’s actual purpose is to destroy the self-government of religious and pro-life organizations.

Cakes and Consciences: The Case of Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop

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The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the case of Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding reception. There is no need to coerce artists to employ their abilities in ways contrary to their religious beliefs.