Year: 2013

October 30, 2013

Poet Christian Wiman: Getting Glimpses Of God

Former editor of Poetry magazine Christian Wiman struggles, like many of us, to make sense of suffering and faith. His struggle is poetic: God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made the things that bring him near, made the mind that makes him go. Continue Reading...
October 29, 2013

The Real Lesson of Prohibition

In 1919 Congress passed the Volstead Act enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting, for almost all purposes, the production, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages. There are two erroneous things everybody has learned from Prohibition, says Anthony Esolen: “First, it is wrong to try to legislate morality. Continue Reading...
October 29, 2013

Babysitting Via The Village Idiot

I live in a fairly small town. It’s probably a lot like the places many of you live: a handful of churches, a grocery store, a pharmacy, a hardware store, small businesses and restaurants plus the schools, public and private. Continue Reading...
October 29, 2013

Dropping the Krauthammer on Centrally-Planned Economies

For my money, Dr. Charles Krauthammer is the most consistently thought-provoking and insightful columnist around. Whether or not you agree with the weekly assessments he offers in his syndicated column, or the nightly prognostications he delivers on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier, Chuck is an intellectual force to be reckoned with. Continue Reading...
October 28, 2013

What the Poor Need Most

During the late 1970s and early 1980s I spent two extended periods living below the poverty line. The first experience came as I entered the first grade. My father was a chronically unhappy man who was skillful and ambitious, yet prone to wanderlust. Continue Reading...
October 28, 2013

Christian Faith In The Face Of Persecution

While Christians in the West are often faced with moral temptations and dilemmas regarding our faith life, we do not – for the most part – know the persecution faced by our brothers and sisters in places such as Syria, Iran, Pakistan and other countries where Christians are openly persecuted. Continue Reading...
October 28, 2013

The Economics of Sainthood

Want to be canonized as a saint? Then you should probably move to Italy: 46.7 percent of saints lived in that country at the time of their deaths. That is just one of the many interesting tidbits to be gleaned from a 2010 paper by Barro, McCleary, and McQuoid titled, The Economics of Sainthood (a preliminary investigation): Saint-making has been a major activity of the Catholic Church for centuries. Continue Reading...
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