It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

Thus begins Charles Dicken’s classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities.  The novel contrasts the cities of London and Paris during the upheaval threatening to turn the world upside down in the Age of Revolution.  Most notably during the period, the American and French Revolutions would birth a new nation and forever change the character and structure of the other, respectively.  The world was forever...

Ever since William F. Buckley wrote his landmark book “God and Man at Yale” in the 1950s, conservatives have had a deep love/hate relationship with higher education.  That relationship has only soured in recent decades with some prominent conservative thinkers—such as the recently deceased sir Roger Scruton—suggesting it may even be time for conservatives to work to “get rid of universities altogether.”

But unlike Buckley’s generation, conservativ...

What is the polar opposite of conservatism?

When I was but a Jedi youngling in the ways of conservatism I had in mind that its opposite was liberalism.  Among my youthful indiscretions I listened to untold hours of the Rush Limbaugh Show where I was informed over and over that liberals were the enemy.  As talk radio radicalized over the years I eventually turned away from it entirely, though I certainly recall how other hosts also used “liberal” a...

Over the past couple of weeks a debate has erupted within the conservative blogosphere the likes of which we have not witnessed since the French Ahmari Wars of 2019.  Here is a woefully brief summary:

• Last month, Mark Galli, editor-in-chief of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, sent social media ablaze with his “Trump Should Be Removed from Office” piece which argued, as the title suggests, that Trump should be removed from office.

...

Much has been said of the rise of populism on the Right today.  But what is populism?  Is it a coherent ideology with discernable objectives and ideas or a reactionary movement against an entrenched government and The Establishment?

Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis parses through the meaning of populism, how it’s applied to politics, what it gets right, what it gets wrong, and how populism can disguise itself as other more rigorous worldviews...

Let us begin with some unsettling facts:

• You will to die someday.

• It is quite possible your death will be painful and frightening.

• For some, death comes tragically early and unexpectedly.

• For some, death comes much later and is fully expected, after years of the body and mind steadily deteriorating to the point vital organs no longer function.

• If you live long enough, everyone you care about now will die.

I’m not trying t...

Last week the leading evangelical magazine Christianity Today sent social media ablaze with their short article “Trump Should Be Removed from Office” which argued, as the title suggests, that Trump should be removed from office.

Mark Galli, the magazine’s editor-in-chief and author of the piece, calls on believers to join in support of removing the president because he is not morally fit to serve.  To quote Galli, “The president of the United Stat...

Earlier this month the Washington Post released the results of a multi-year investigation into the war in Afghanistan which have been termed the Afghanistan Papers.  The release begins: “A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmi...

As Republicans look ahead to the end of the Trump presidency (whether that’s a year away or five years out) many are beginning to ask, “what does a post-Trump GOP look like?”

For conservatives who have spent the past three years as outcasts from a party increasingly given to populist nationalism, the prospects are both exciting and worrying.  Will things ‘go back to normal’?  Will the Republican party once again be the home of conservatism?  Or ha...

This week’s post is going to be significantly shorter than most as work has been crazy (hey, I don’t get paid to blog and podcast!) and I’m gearing up for another blog series.  But before that series begins, next week’s post will be on the dreadful topic of suffering, death, and our growing inability to cope with it all; in case you were in any danger of having a weekend of blissful ignorance.

Since Thanksgiving is little more than a week behind u...