We live in a culture that discussed ad nauseum the most mundane and trivial things—everything, that is, but death. A new book explains why this is impoverishing our daily lives. Read More… There was a time when the Latin axiom “Memento Mori,” or its English translation, “Remember that thou art mortal,” actually meant something to people. For most of history, death was omnipresent and everyone had to make peace with it. As we entered the scientific age, in which a...

A debate about whether a Christian landlord should ever evict a delinquent tenant offers a “teachable moment” about what Christians can bring to this particular business, and what such a business needs to be a blessing to everyone, including the poorest among us. Read More… Until a recent online debate, I hadn’t known about Kevin Nye, who has almost 15,000 followers on Twitter and a “housing first” plan to end homelessness. The man is clearly a deeply sincere, theologically progressive...

Spend some time on social media or in mixed pany at the office and language inevitably es (euphemism alert) heated. Is there a better way to disagree, because disagree we must if we are to preserve liberty for thee and for me. Read More… In his classic The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Michael Novak offers an observation about an ongoing struggle in a pluralistic society: the absence of a unified vision of the good. His passing observation regarding the psychology...

A new book that takes aim at the critical theories that abound in academia and the culture only confuses issues and avoids direct confrontation between what the Bible clearly teaches and what the world clearly believes. Read More… If a Christian scholar has figured out a way to wrestle with critical theory through a biblical lens, that would be an important book. Unfortunately, Christopher Watkin’s Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture...

Beijing’s ruling allows Hong Kong to withhold qualified legal counsel from its political prisoners. Read More… Less than a month after Hong Kong adjourned democracy advocate Jimmy Lai’s trial, Beijing has stacked the deck even further against the jailed entrepreneur and freedom fighter. After the Hong Kong High Court postponed Lai’s trial in December, the responsibility fell to Beijing’s Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to determine the role of the media mogul’s international legal counsel. Lai, 75, has...

A new book on Christian nationalism has touched a chord with many who feel alienated from a culture increasingly hostile to religious faith. Its prescriptions, however, may prove as deadly as the disease it wishes to cure. Read More… It is not a point of dispute that the Christian faith, both in influence and number of adherents, is declining in the Western world. Every month, new books, articles, podcasts, surveys, and sermons analyze, diagnose, and strategize about the waves of...

The passing of Joseph Ratzinger, pope emeritus, offers an opportunity to reflect on his legacy as a teacher, not only within the Church but for the world. Read More… With the December 31 passing of Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church, Christianity, and the world lost one of the most significant and insightful minds of the last century. Certainly, within the Church, Joseph Ratzinger was among the most influential and esteemed theologians of the second half of the 20th century,...

Most Christians, especially those involved in social justice issues, have heard of Catholic social teaching, including the papal encyclicals that gave it life. But how many have heard of its Protestant version? Does it even exist? If not, is such a thing possible given the varieties of Protestantisms? Read More… The point of departure for Protestant Social Teaching: An Introduction is an observation set forth by Stephen J. Grabill in the pages of the Journal of Markets & Morality: “Neither...

In part 2 of an 8-part series, Marvin Olasky describes what it was like to try and reform welfare and poverty-fighting efforts when Republicans held both houses of Congress for the first time in over 40 years. Read More… ’Tis the song, the sigh of the weary, Hard Times, hard e again no more. Many days you have lingered around my cabin door; Oh! Hard e again no more. —Stephen Foster, 1854 Atlanta Journal and Constitution columnist Colin Campbell, on...

The end of the Castro regime has not meant an end to severe restrictions on religious freedom in Cuba. New reports detail how bad things are for believers. Read More… Six decades after its munist revolution, Cuba remains a totem for America’s left. Yet the country is imploding into irrelevance. Fidel Castro is dead and Raul Castro is retired, but their successors rule as if 1989 had never occurred. Cuba is economically backward, its residents are poor, the young are...