Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Reviews

July 22, 2025

Separation of Church and Secularism

If armed officers of the state didn’t come to your church gathering this past weekend, demanding that you break up your unofficial and unlicensed religious gathering, you can thank, in large part, America’s largest Protestant tradition: Baptists. Continue Reading...
July 16, 2025

Still Betting on Pascal’s Wager

Long known and respected for his scholarship on liberalism, regime types, and the nation, Pierre Manent has also contributed to discussions on natural law, prudence, and agency in the face of contemporary confusions about meaning and the human good. Continue Reading...
July 15, 2025

Don’t Let AI Hack Your Humanity

I recently attended a seminar on AI in which the speaker presented a recent exchange with ChatGPT, ending in the chatbot giving a very convincing imitation of a human compliment. “That should feel weird,” the speaker told the audience, and judging by the largely over-30 crowd, he made his point. Continue Reading...
July 02, 2025

The Perennial Temptation: To Be as Gods

In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis suggests that technology functions as a bait-and-switch: Users think they’re getting power, but they’re actually giving up their freedom. “What we call Man’s power is, in reality, a power possessed by some men which they may, or may not, allow other men to profit by.” Continue Reading...
July 01, 2025

A Telltale Heart in Ukraine

There is blood seeping from under an otherwise ordinary shed door in the city. This possible sign of a crime sets in motion the plot of The Stolen Heart, Andrey Kurkov’s second installment in the delightful series of Kyiv mysteries, set nearly 100 years ago and following the low-brow exploits of a young policeman, Samson Kolechko (“The Ring”). Continue Reading...
June 19, 2025

Not by Beauty Alone

In the past 15 years or so, the general turn among Christians of all stripes (even, perhaps counterintuitively, Christians on the very far right) has been away from a rationalistic approach to the Faith and toward an affirmation of the mystery behind its doctrines. Continue Reading...
June 12, 2025

How Three Cinematic Jesuses Explain American Divisions

Although Americans disagree on almost everything, most of us still really love Jesus. According to a 2023 Barna study, 71% of Americans have a positive view of Jesus. This includes 84% of Christians (which raises questions about the other 26%), 58% of adherents of other faiths, and 40% of those with no faith. Continue Reading...
June 05, 2025

The Curious Task of ‘Abundance’

In their new and highly anticipated book, Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, both journalists and bestselling authors who align ideologically with the political left and American liberalism, refreshingly advocate for growth and abundance. Continue Reading...