A new Apple TV+ series starring Harrison Ford and Jason Segel surprises by avoiding most of the liberal clichés about self-help and actually has something rewarding to say about what it means to be an adult, especially a manly adult. Read More… Harrison Ford has suddenly returned to acting at the age of 80, after a decade of mostly forgettable cameos. He’s now making movies and even TV series that are bound to get quite a bit of critical attention...

Today we remember a profound thinker who continues to remind us of the danger of instrumentalized art in the service of merely ideological ends—and the role of hospitality, personal influence, in the upholding of truth. Read More… On this particular day … we had just said to one another that if our nature was so unhappy as to possess only a pseudo-intelligence capable of everything but the truth, if, sitting in judgment on itself, it had to debase itself to...

A new book by eminent legal philosopher Hadley Arkes, Mere Natural Rights, puts forth the case for the “self-evident truths” of “mere natural law” as the foundation of our constitutional system, without which “originalism” is doomed to failure as a coherent judicial philosophy. Read More… It is never out of season to recall James Wilson’s line that the purpose of the Constitution was not to invent new rights “by a human establishment,” but to secure and enlarge the rights we...

This hit HBO series is not just another zombie horror show. It’s an attempt to wrestle with how easily we can lose our humanity even before our worst nightmare is realized. But what does it mean to be human in a world without God? (And oh yeah, spoiler alerts.) Read More… The Last of Us is the latest prestige drama from HBO and has gained near universal critical acclaim, garnering the second-largest audience for the network since 2010, trailing only...

A recent article published in the evangelical magazine of record says that Christianity is not necessary for democracy. But its argument is muddled and use of terms confused. More important: it’s just plain wrong. Read More… Depending on one’s perspective, religious freedom was either born or died with the founding of the United States of America. The colonial powers of Europe of the late 18th century had dominant religious majorities and established churches. The American republic was founded with an...

Award-winning playwright Jonathan Leaf has just published his debut novel, a modern noir filled with murder, mayhem, scandal, intrigue, drugs, sex cults—you know, the usual. Read More… Dreams can often turn into nightmares. And dreams in Hollywood are a special kind, as are the nightmares that can follow. One day you’re getting ready to audition for a role in a movie. You’re full of hope, depending of course on how much time you’ve spent among the crowd of overly aesthetic...

Professor and author Abigail Favale has built an academic career in gender studies and feminist literary criticism. Her latest book brings a wealth of experience and meditation on these subjects and provides both guidance for Christians and a potential source of vexation for enemies of the permanent things. Read More… Abigail Favale’s The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory presents a positive vision of gender as part of God’s good creation. She describes and responds to contemporary gender theory, showing...

The decline in education standards can be directly traced to a decline in respect for the lib-eral arts. But before they can be revived, one question must be answered: What exactly are they? Read More… For those of us who’ve devoted out lives to the liberal arts, it’s all mon to encounter doubters. As a high school English teacher, I encounter this all too frequently. Naturally, I’ve developed my own arguments, and because my interlocutors are teenagers, I’m usually successful...

A new book, one in a series on “human flourishing” published by Oxford University Press, offers several essays on how theater can be used as a forum for radical-left grievance. When do we get to the flourishing part? Read More… When the Berlin Wall fell, it was monplace observation that there were more Marxists in New York City than in the USSR. If the new Oxford University Press book Theater & Human Flourishing is any indication, they have since relocated...

A parliamentary group has denounced the loss of press freedom in Hong Kong, even as the Chinese Communist Party insists freedom fighters like Lai are “doomed to fail.” Read More… As 75-year-old Jimmy Lai languishes in prison, the Hong Kong government, pressured by the Chinese Community Party (CCP), is dedicated to ensuring that the country’s most famous freedom fighter fails to win any further support for his cause. Lai’s story has spread across the world, and the regime currently holding...