A new book on the Reagan administration and the battle to win the Cold War gets something that others miss: it was a team effort, and one that was met with both left-wing and White House opposition. But the president and his NSC head believed they were doing God’s work. Literally. Read More… Of all the writers in the limited universe of Reagan biographers (myself included), William Inboden is one I have never met. His Amazon page shows only one...

A recent NY Times op-ed rang an alarm bell about the Supreme Court’s supposed preference for religion “over all other elements of civil society.” This betrays a terrible misunderstanding of what exactly the First Amendment protects. Read More… Earlier this week, Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist Linda Greenhouse came out of retirement on the opinion page of her former paper to warn Americans that their nation is now on the cusp of seeing religion “elevate[d] … over all other...

Following the work of one of social conservatism’s most prominent defenders is a good start for the new year. Read More… In 2021, for the first time in two decades of Gallup polling, America’s social ideology shifted. For the first time in two decades of Gallup polling, social liberals outnumbered their socially conservative counterparts. Although a 4% dislocation may not seem that significant, it serves as evidence of a trend many on the political right have bemoaned for years: More...

Nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, Women Talking takes a real-life story of horrific abuse in a South American munity and transmutes it into a transcultural discussion of women’s choices. But does it lose something in the translation? Read More… The film Women Talking opens with what amounts to a warning: “This is an act of female imagination.” That’s because it’s not actually a telling of the events on which it is based, the horrific story of rape and abuse...

Breaking government monopolies on providing social services takes more than patience and perseverance—it takes a witness. Read More… While Washingtonians in 1995 fought welfare battles on Capitol Hill, a struggle initially below press radar began in San Antonio. The July 5 afternoon temperature was 90 degrees as James Heurich, with sleeves rolled up and tie loosened, sat at his scarred desk in the office of a Christian anti-addiction program, Teen Challenge of South Texas. Heurich, a big bear of a...

The finale of the British edy summed up perfectly the true theme of the show but also hinted at a way forward for all of us in these fractious, contentious times. Read More… At the beginning of the final episode of Derry Girls, the British Channel 4 TV series that ran for three seasons and that was also carried by Netflix in the U.S., the character Orla McCool, one of the titular protagonists, leaves a government office after having received...

Stories are more than entertainment. They can also be liberating experiments in reinvention and reimagining what might otherwise be tragic lives. Stories can help us see—and craft—a better ending for ourselves and those we love. Read More… When I was four years old—and for many years later—my favorite pastime was frog hunting. There was no swamp pond or quagmire I was unwilling to traverse in the name of a robust, amphibious catch. One warm midsummer day—when I should have been...

We can’t change history or attitudes simply by changing the names of monuments and military bases. Confronting the past, and learning from it to produce a generation of new role models, is much harder, and much preferred. Read More… Early in January, the U.S. Department of Defense began a massive undertaking to change the names of nine military bases, two ships, and over 1,000 other items, including signs and roads, all of which are currently linked to Confederate figures. Fort...

The embattled published and entrepreneur continues his fight for justice—and the counsel he previously had been allowed. Read More… Sitting in a prison cell, stripped of both legal counsel and liberty, 75-year-old entrepreneur and publisher Jimmy Lai has likely been tempted to give up the fight against the Beijing and its years-long effort to curtail civil and human rights in Hong Kong. Yet the democracy advocate, imprisoned since December 2020, continues to take on Xi Jinping’s regime for his right...

“Evangelical” has e almost a dirty word, with political and scandalous overtones. But its history, and that of evangelical revivals, is a rich and varied one that includes some of the great “social justice” movements of the past 250 years. Read More… In the middle decades of the 18th century, a powerful spiritual movement swept through much of North America and Great Britain, as well as some parts of northern Europe. This evangelical revival (or, in North America, the Great...