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January 25, 2023

A Bond for All Seasons

As the producers of the venerable James Bond franchise come to ponder how best to refurbish their hero for the uncertain times ahead—a woman, perhaps, and/or a person of color?—a small but persistent debate among film buffs continues to address the chicken-and-egg dilemma of which came first: Have the actors successively playing Bond over the past 60-plus years consciously fine-tuned their performance in response to all the eddies in fashion and culture, or have they been ahead of the curve in defining the limits of an acceptable sort of male behavior for the rest of us to emulate? Continue Reading...
January 24, 2023

A Priest for People with Problems

Being fully human is complicated. Having a foot in both the material and spiritual worlds and with an originally good but fallen nature, our thoughts, motivations, and desires often come into conflict, and we don’t always choose what is best for us. Continue Reading...
January 19, 2023

Biblical Critical Theory and Other Errors

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 is mistitled. Continue Reading...
January 18, 2023

Fidel Castro’s Failed Paradise

Six decades after its celebrated communist 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. Continue Reading...
January 17, 2023

The Will to Power Is Not the Christian Way

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 secularism pounding through churches, synagogues, homes, marriages, workplaces, universities, primary and secondary schools—indeed, what feels like every square inch of our society. Continue Reading...
January 12, 2023

What Is Protestant Social Teaching?

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 magisterial Protestants nor evangelicals have a theologically unified body of social teaching.” Continue Reading...
January 10, 2023

Hong Kong Can Bar Overseas Lawyers in Lead Up to Jimmy Lai Trial

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. Continue Reading...
January 10, 2023

Faith and Reason in the Life and Work of Benedict XVI

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, all the way through his pontificate in the early 21st, to include the period of the Second Vatican Council, to which he was an important adviser. Continue Reading...