Moral Education in the Shadow of the Holocaust
Why do some ordinary men and women commit horrible atrocities, while others resist, even if it costs their lives? Studies of the Holocaust offer a potent critique of our customary approaches to moral education.
Adapt or Die: Why Social Conservatives Need a Moneyball Revolution
If social conservatives don’t radically alter what we are doing—if we don’t buck the current conventional wisdom and do something different—we will lose.
California’s New Sexual Orientation Bill Is Bad, but It Wouldn’t Ban Books
Social conservatives are right to oppose proposed legislation that would ban therapy to help those experiencing unwanted same-sex attraction or gender identity confusion. But they’re wrong to say that the bill would ban books.
The First Amendment Didn’t Separate Church and State—Christianity Did
It was Christianity, not modernity, that separated church and state. It was modernity, not Christianity, that sought to bind them back together. And, at day’s end, the American order has more in keeping with the Christian apostasy than with either antiquity’s sacral political orders or modernity’s rejection of the claim that there exists any domain outside the jurisdiction of the modern state.
The Dual Legitimation Crisis: Elitism, Populism, and Political Power
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.
Conservatives Should Care about Institutional Racism
Contemporary America faces continued racial discord that throws into question our mutual seriousness about the natural rights tradition and our commitment to the demands of republican citizenship. In an effort at self-scrutiny, conservatives should ask ourselves what our first response is in the face of evidence of institutional racism, and then ask ourselves what it should be.
How the New Corporate Elite Sold Same-Sex Marriage to the American Public
Darel Paul’s meticulous, courageous account of how the elites brought same-sex marriage to America deserves to be read by all who would understand where we are and where we’re going.
Rob Rieman, Joseph Pieper, and the Existential Poverty of the West
Joseph Pieper knows what Rob Riemen has forgotten: the existential poverty of the West cannot be evaded or solved through humanism, for no ersatz god gives meaning to our poetry, song, dance, and drama. Absent God, it is all vapor, lacking the goodness to which we respond in wonder, delight, joy, and feasting.
Women’s Hidden Influence: Mothers, Race, and the American Republic
Women are deeply effective in the transmission of mores, as are the churches, schools, and civic organizations that they serve and lead. If these institutions were touched by white supremacy even into the 1970s, how can those educated by such institutions escape the influence of these opinions in their own interpretations of contemporary racial politics?
The New States’ Rights: Is Parenthood Defined by Biology or Government?
Same-sex parenting advocates are calling on states’ rights to define the legal relationship between parent and child. What they seek is the power to write the record of a child’s origins and to determine a fundamental aspect of a child’s identity.
Surrogacy: No Laughing Matter
Surrogacy is no April Fools’ joke. It’s no laughing matter at all. It’s a big business that exploits, uses, abuses, preys on, and commodifies women. It turns children into products to be designed, selected, and purchased, while it profits handsomely. And it is willing to fight like mad to protect its moneyed interests.
The Future of the Pro-Life Movement Is in Africa
Aside from the importance of fighting ideological neocolonialism, building up the pro-life movement in Africa is essential given how politically and economically influential Africa is likely to become over the next century. Obianuju Ekeocha is doing this admirably and effectively on a shoestring budget.
The Ultimate Catholic Showdown? Liberalism vs. Integralism at Harvard
A recent conference on Christianity and liberalism brought together high-profile Catholic scholars who strongly disagree about whether Catholicism is compatible with liberalism in general and the American version of it in particular.
Ross Douthat, Pope Francis, and the Future of the Catholic Church
When it comes to the Catholic Church, there’s a quiet sense that the Vatican thinks in centuries, that a thirty-year crisis will hardly matter in time. Perhaps this time is different. But we don’t know, and Ross Douthat is honest enough to leave us hanging, waiting for the next installment of the Church’s story to be told.
The Physician-Assisted Suicide Movement Is Gaining Ground in Two Major Ways
The foundation is being laid for widespread legalization of physician-assisted suicide.
Can Sex Be Casual? Searching for Connection on Campus
A new book on the hookup culture describes its harms in great detail. But the author fails to understand the implications of her own data, ignoring the fact that we’re in the middle of a cultural sexual crisis that exists because we’ve told ourselves that sex can be casual.
Gender Dysphoria and Children: An Endocrinologist’s Evaluation of I am Jazz
I Am Jazz contains both false information and very troubling omissions. Children who are experiencing gender dysphoria will likely be harmed by this book, as will children who do not have the condition.
Jordan Peterson on Adam and Eve
In his biblical interpretation, Jordan Peterson re-presents in powerful and fresh ways the stories that have animated Western culture. Christians have much to learn from him, even as his own engagement with the Bible could be enriched by the Christian tradition.
In Defense of Originalism
Originalism is the commonsense, traditional American approach to constitutional interpretation, not a contemporary conservative invention.
Domestic Challenges to Religious Liberty—From Left and Right
Religious freedom in America is caught between opponents on the left and the right. The second in a two-part series.
Religious Totalitarianism, Secular Totalitarianism, and Other Threats to International Religious Freedom
Westerners should neither exaggerate our problems and forget how good we have it nor exaggerate our blessings and neglect the defense of religious freedom. We’re not inherently better or more deserving of religious freedom than anyone else in the world, and we should not take our good fortune for granted. The first in a two-part series.
