 "They Came to Kill Him": The Persecution of Christians - November 2019 by Raymond Ibrahim Western Governments Play a Key Role in Successful Honor Killing Escapes by Phyllis Chesler
The Investigative Project on Terrorism February 11, 2020 https://www.meforum.org/60409/western-governments-play-a-key-role-in-successful  Rémi Brague’s bracing critique of modernity’s low-rent logos By Richard M. Reinsch II on Feb 12, 2020 08:27 pm In Curing Mad Truths, French philosopher Rémi Brague argues that the modern world is dying because it cannot answer the question of why it should live. To answer that question will require humility, according to [...] Read in browser » On transgenderism: Common ground, and real differences, between Catholics and radical feminists By Catholic News Agency on Feb 13, 2020 10:05 pm
Washington D.C., Feb 13, 2020 / 05:10 pm (CNA).- This article is the second part of Mary Farrow’s two-part series on the Church, gender-critical feminists, and transgender ideology. Part one was published on Feb. 10. [...] Read in browser »
Saudi Arabia’s ‘Slow Steaming’ Changes to Islam May Just Work
By James G. Zumwalt, The Hill: "“Slow steaming” is a concept by which container ships operate at lower speeds to minimize wear and tear on engines, save fuel, reduce emissions and otherwise improve efficiency. This concept proves that, sometimes, slower can be better than faster."
Making sense of Pope Francis on faith, evangelization, and proselytizing (Part II)
By Eduardo Echeverria on Feb 05, 2020 11:58 pm Editor’s note: This is Part II of a two-part essay; here is Part I. The Nature of Truth I argued in the previous section that Francis rejects propositional truth. On this view, the truth-status of [...] Read in browser »
A postcard by the Cappucin mission in Mesopotemia of two Chaldean men from the villages surrounding the town of Mardin in South East Turkey, along the Syrian border. Chaldean Christians recognize the Pope as the head of the Universal Church. They split from the Assyrian (Nestorian) Church in the sixteenth century. Chaldean Christians are found in largest concentrations in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the United States (Detroit), Europe, and Australia. The head of the Church, the Patriarch, resides in Baghdad with the title of "the Patriarch of Babylon". He has the rank of a Cardinal in the Catholic church. Their liturgy is in Aramaic.
 Saving Christian Civilization Through Eros By Peter S. Rieth on Jan 26, 2020 08:00 pm What I behold today is a Western world of “tolerance” and homosexual-inspired androgyny, so morally bankrupt and decadent that even the natural, primitive sexual appetites that make women attractive for men have been erased. It has come to this: Conservatives must now begin the restoration of civilization by promoting erotic love in order to ... Read in browser » Music and the Transcendental By Sir Roger Scruton on Jan 27, 2020 03:00 pm Wherever we are—in restaurants or in the Metro or wherever—we are overhearing music coming at us from all angles, and we are learning how to ignore it. We live in a society where, if we do not learn to ignore it, we cannot also learn to listen to it. This puts an enormous strain ... Read in browser » The Gravity of Gravity: A Quick Look at Astronomy and Its Relevance By Andrew Seeley on Jan 27, 2020 03:00 pm When a fascinating chaos has been observed enough to reveal patterns that allow prediction, the human mind is ready to ask, “Why?” So it is with the cosmos. Tracing the answers to this question throughout history allows us to understand the development of cosmology and its effects on moral imagination. Like most of the ... Read in browser » A republic, if we can keep it
Adam J. White | The Atlantic Constitutional structure, like any structure, does not maintain itself. Each generation has to maintain its institutions and repair any damage that its predecessors inflicted or allowed. This task begins with civic education, so that Americans know how their government works and thus what to expect from their constitutional institutions.  We must rediscover how Aristotle’s Rhetoric brings light into what Socrates saw as the political “cave.” Read More » With Bright Wings: George Weigel’s “The Irony of Modern Catholic History”
By Dwight Longenecker on Jan 25, 2020 10:00 pm The Christian Church’s ongoing struggle with modernity is unavoidable. How does a two-thousand-year-old religion, with roots even further into antiquity, adapt to a world not only technologically astonishing, but philosophically post-Christian, totally materialistic, and indifferent towards God? George Weigel answers this question in “The Irony of Modern Catholic History.” The Irony of Modern Catholic ... Read in browser »
Long before the European Enlightenment and the Darwinian revolution, which we often take to mark the birth of the modern revolt against religious explanations of the world, brave people doubted the power of the gods. Religion provoked scepticism in ancient Greece, and heretics argued that history must be understood as a result of human action rather than divine intervention. They devised theories of the cosmos based on matter, and notions of matter based on atoms. They developed mathematical tools that could be applied to the world around them and tried to understand that world in material terms. Their scepticism left a rich legacy of literature, philosophy, and science and was defended by such great writers as Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, and Lucian.
Tim Whitmarsh tells the story of the tension between orthodoxy and heresy with great panache, a story that ended—for the moment—with the imposition of Christianity on the Roman Empire in 313 CE.  Sir Roger Scruton: In Memoriam By Paul Krause on Jan 12, 2020 03:36 pm Sir Roger Scruton, the prolific British philosopher and writer, died on January 12, 2020, after a six-month battle with cancer. A renowned intellectual whose interests and commentary covered political philosophy, aesthetics, and religion, Sir Roger was more than just a man who covered many topics with penetrating insight and erudition; he was, to me, a ... Read in browser » The Last Speech: “A Thing Called Civilization” By Roger Scruton on Jan 12, 2020 02:27 pm On September 19, 2019, at the fourteenth annual Gala for Western Civilization, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute presented Sir Roger Scruton with the Defender of Western Civilization award. Sir Roger gave these remarks on accepting the award. He had recently been diagnosed with cancer, the disease that would bring about his death on January 12, 2020. ... Read in browser » Sir Roger Scruton: In Memoriam The Last Speech: "A Thing Called Civilization" Why Beauty Matters The Implications of the Logos for Christianity Roger Scruton on America, the Nation-State, & the Responsibility of Intellectuals
By Tina McCormick on Feb 09, 2020 08:01 pm It is hard to imagine how this country will recover from the hostility and political polarization that now define it without rediscovering a “pre-political loyalty," as Sir Roger Scruton called it, "towards something higher, something that is shared between all the citizens, regardless of their political beliefs and inclinations: the nation." With Roger Scruton’s passing ... Read in browser » Further Reflections on Beethoven’s Best Work By Michael Kurek on Feb 06, 2020 03:00 pm The question becomes, by what criteria do we determine what is objectively the “best” in the arts? I think that "communication" is a crucially important criterion, and I propose that a transcendent reflection of God, who is the divine source of objective truth, expressed in human creativity is indeed objectively, theologically "better" than mathematical integrity ... Read in browser »  Kant’s Imperative By Eva Brann on Dec 29, 2019 10:00 pm What makes freedom possible is beyond all knowing, but what makes the moral law possible is freedom itself. The fact that we have a faculty of freedom is the critical ground of the possibility of morality. I have called this lecture “Kant’s Imperative” so that I might begin by pointing up an ever-intriguing circumstance. ... Read in browser » “Poison Under Its Wings”: The Constitution and Its Defects
By John Devanny on Jan 01, 2020 10:00 pm The plan for government that came from the Philadelphia convention was what Patrick Henry referred to as a beautiful butterfly with “poison under its wings.” The parchment barriers erected against monarchy and consolidation, he held, would only be as effective as the force backing them. The beginning of the American political order goes much ... Read in browser » Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of God Donald DeMarco Etienne Gilson was one of the clearest thinking philosophers of the 20th century. As a good philosopher, naturally, he fully understood the importance of reason, a power that is often downgraded or even dismissed in the modern world. In an address he gave at Harvard’s Tercentenary Celebration (1936), he made the following statement: “Realism always […]  The Counter-cultural Idea of a Christian University by Ted McAllister The next great Christian university will oppose the combination of modernism and cultural ideology now regnant in the academy. Read More » Leisure the Basis of Labor
By David Deavel on Dec 25, 2019 10:00 pm Michael Naughton’s new book, “Getting Work Right,” is a wonderful invitation to share a vision of work that goes beyond resume obsession or Thank-God-It’s-Friday attitudes. It’s an invitation to Thank God It’s Sunday and keep thanking all week long. Getting Work Right: Labor and Leisure in a Fragmented World, by Michael J. Naughton (200 ... Read in browser »  The Red Wheel of Revolution by Will Morrisey No one surpasses Solzhenitsyn in conveying a sense of what it feels to live at and near the center of this kind of vortex. Read More » Beyond the Ideological Lie: The Revolution of 1989 Thirty Years Later
Steven Hayward | Liberty Forum Discussion A Better Guide than Reason—Or Not? Virginia Arberty | Book Review Just Before the Return of the Strong Gods James Matthew Wilson | Liberty Classics  Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics By Dwight Longenecker on Dec 07, 2019 09:59 pm Puzzled by the sudden surge of identity politics, Mary Eberstadt traces its genesis to the sexual revolution. By doing so, she addresses the “primal screams” of faceless, lonely people grabbing at an identity like a shipwrecked person clutching at flotsam. Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics, by Mary Eberstadt (192 pages, ... Read in browser Hobbes’ “Leviathan”: A Collectivist Horror By Bradley J. Birzer on Dec 12, 2019 10:00 pm With the loss of traditional religion as the guiding force of the Western world, following the collapse of the Medieval around 1350, politics quickly became not just a substitute, but a religion in and of itself, a proto-ideology serving as a glue for the emerging nation-states of Europe. Certainties that the Medievals had taken ... Read in browser » Prometheus Unbound: Mary Shelley’s Admonishment About Scientism
By Drew Maglio on Dec 12, 2019 10:00 pm In the Promethean Allegory, Prometheus is both hero and villain. In one ilk, he molded humanity out of clay to aid the titans in their struggle against the gods. But Prometheus’ revolution against the divine order cost him dearly. In a similar vein, is science more and more the quest to advance human knowledge, ... Read in browser »  The Vatican’s Nuclear Diplomacy from the Cold War to the Present by Aaron Bateman
 A Reflection on the Resurrection of the Superfluous Man
By Miles Smith on Dec 06, 2019 09:59 pm Russia’s nineteenth-century literary luminaries all found themselves wrestling with a particularly Romantic archetype: the Superfluous Man. Bored, confused, dissolute, yet noble and aristocratic, the Superfluous Man experiences tragedy in his reckless pursuit of passion. And I can’t help but wonder whether there is any hope for these characters—both the Russians in the novels, and ... Read in browser »  Who helps former ultra-Orthodox integrate into Israeli way of life? Israelis who leave the ultra-Orthodox way of life find themselves without basic education, psychological support or career prospects. Instead of forced enlistment, Israeli leadership must dialogue with ultra-Orthodox Instead of demanding that the ultra-Orthodox enlist in the army — like the secular parties insisted during election campaigns — Israel’s political leadership must open a dialogue with the ultra-Orthodox leadership about academic studies and the labor market. Learning to Love Again: Dante’s Descent in the “Inferno” By Paul Krause on Dec 04, 2019 10:00 pm That there is much depth to Dante’s “Inferno” is an understatement, and the poet’s descent into the abyss is perplexing at first glance. However, by invoking the muses of poetry and in being guided by Virgil, Dante tips his hand and reveals to the astute reader that the journey into—and through—hell will require the flowering ... Read in browser » The Romantic Theology of Charles Williams
By Bradley J. Birzer on Dec 04, 2019 10:00 pm Just as we consume the Eucharist at Mass, recognizing the holiness of the act, so some marriages become profound examples and witnesses of holiness. By habit and faith, Charles Williams contended, the serious Christian begins to see all meals as a shadow of the Eucharist and all love as a shadow of Holy Matrimony. ... Read in browser » Reno assumes the alternative is between the weak loves of neo-liberalism and the strong loves of a revivified European conservativism. Read More »  Return of the Small Gods? By Dwight Longenecker on Nov 16, 2019 09:01 pm Rusty Reno’s recent book, Return of the Strong Gods is an excellent explanation of the roots of relativism. The short version is that two world wars left Western civilization with a huge societal case of post-traumatic stress disorder. With heads in hands, the thinkers concluded that we kill one another because of dogma. We say, ... Read in browser » A Course Reversal? On R.R. Reno’s Return of the Strong Gods By James Kalb on Dec 10, 2019 05:06 pm Many people today, especially conservatives and Christians, find it alarming that basic human connections and loyalties keep weakening in favor of impersonal economic and administrative arrangements. The tendency has been going on for a long [...] Read in browser » The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Truth By Joseph Pearce on Nov 16, 2019 09:00 pm Books are liberating. Not all books, to be sure. Not the sort of books that are as bad as the fads they serve, the sort of books in which vanity vanquishes verity, and in which the passion for fashion crucifies truth. Not the sort of books that turn their readers into prisoners of the ... Read in browser » Globalization and Our National Anomie by Nayeli RianoGlobalization has become an ineluctable reality. Technocrats and cosmopolitan politicians are abetting globalization for political influence, economic gain, and utopian delusion. We might add another incentive: A forgotten or deliberately ignored reverence for civic life. Might a hyper-focus on global advancement be contributing to a growing state of national anomie in liberal democracies worldwide? [MORE] Tolkien & Anglo-Saxon England: Protectors of Christendom by Bradley J. BirzerJ.R.R. Tolkien believed that the Anglo-Saxon world might offer us strength to redeem Christendom. The hero of The Lord of the Rings, after all, is an Anglo-Saxon farmer turned citizen-warrior. The myth became one of universal—rather than national—significance and import. The Christian should embrace and sanctify the most noble virtues to come out of the northern pagan mind: courage and raw will... [MORE] Where, Then, Is Time? by Eva Brann If it is the case that time never makes its appearance out in the world but only motion is in evidence, then either time is not or it is in the only other venue of which I can think, inside our soul—to be internally imagined rather than externally projected. When physical time has been shown to lack all physical evidence and therefore to be scientifically void, it might still be theologically real... [MORE] History’s Answer to Modern Despair Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. “Having trivialized the past by equating it with outmoded . . . fashions and attitudes, people today resent anyone who draws on the past in serious discussions of contemporary conditions or attempts to use the past as a standard by which to judge the present… A denial of the past, superficially progressive and optimistic, proves […] The choice is not between a Spartan communitarianism or Brook Farm-style collectivism, and contemporary liberalism. Read More »
 Why Pop Music Is So Bad These Days
By Jon Henschen on Nov 07, 2019 09:59 pm Today’s pop music is designed to sell, not inspire. Today’s pop artist is often more concerned with producing something familiar to mass audience, increasing the likelihood of commercial success. With less timbral variety, and the same combination of keyboard, drum machine, and computer software, and with only two songwriters writing much of what we hear, ... Read in browser »  "Too Many to Count": The Global Persecution of Christians by Raymond Ibrahim Algeria: Persecution of Christians Continues Unbroken by Uzay Bulut The High Risks of Soleimani's Solution for Iraq by Amir Taheri The Fate of Christians in the Current World by Denis MacEoin Egypt: Christian Churches Burn "Accidentally," or Have "Terrorists Changed Operations"?by Raymond Ibrahim Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán: Europe's Solitary Defender of Persecuted Christiansby Giulio Meotti • Another Ignored Genocide of Christians Plagues Burkina Faso by Raymond Ibrahim Nathaniel Allen writes: Defeating Boko Haram will require a fundamental shift in how the Nigerian government has handled the insurgency. To date, policymakers in Abuja have relied on a combination of neglect, ruthlessness, and over-confidence, downplaying the scale of the problem and relying on military force to substitute for a broader political strategy. A growing acceptance within Nigeria’s armed forces and governing institutions that the insurgency is once again a rising threat provides an opportunity for policymakers to change course. – War on the Rocks "The war against Christians: It hit a peak in the last century but it's ongoing in the Middle East, Africa and Asia," Clifford D. May, The Washington Times
 Understanding Hegel’s Theory on Time By Eva Brann on Nov 04, 2019 10:00 pm Time, it will turn out, is a kind of intuiting, indeed the matrix of all intuiting, but it is not therefore to be intuited, that is, looked at, rather than thought out. The moving pictures that Hegel himself suggests to illustrate the emerging determinations of thought are only concessions to our ordinarily representational minds. This ... Read in browser » Liberalism and Idolatry Go Hand in Hand Michael Pakaluk “Considered in itself, idolatry is the greatest of mortal sins.” So begins the old Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry on the topic. I was surprised to read that this is the greatest of all mortal sins. Was it worse than murder? Worse even than the sexual abuse of minors? “For it is, by definition,” the entry continues, […]Read More Our Lady Is the True Guardian of Womanhood, Not Feminism Donald DeMarco On the night of October 29, 2019, Meghan Murphy, a freelance writer, spoke at a Toronto library to an audience of roughly 100 people, mostly women. Her topic, entirely unwarranted just a few years ago, was “Gender Identity: What Does It Mean for Society, The Law, and Women?” Her main point was that “allowing men […]Read More Pre-Socratics or First Philosophers?
By Eva Brann on Nov 25, 2019 09:59 pm The Pre-Socratics may be thought of as deficient, lacking something, primitive in the derogatory sense. But there is also the opposite perspective: These men were not primitive, without sophistication, but primeval, deeper, more receptive to origins. Think how peculiar this appellation is: “Pre-Socratics.” A whole slew of thinkers, poetical, aphoristic, prosaic—condemned to be known as ... Read in browser »  Turkey: Arming Genocide of Christians in Nigeria?
by Raymond Ibrahim  This military base is getting its own exorcism horror movie, and it’s ‘based on a true story’ (Army Times) “Incident at Fort Bragg" is “inspired by the true story of Irish priest Malachi Martin, who was brought in by the U.S. government to perform a sanctioned exorcism on a young soldier. REVOLUTIONISM REDUX, PART I By EPPC Resident Scholar James Bowman The New Criterion If it takes one kind of Holy Madness to drive out another, dissenters from the identity politics of the newly socialist and liberationist left may be driven to join the Trumpites under the banner of nationalism. Read More THE IDEOLOGICAL HIJACKING OF POPE ST. JOHN XXIII
By EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel Syndicated Column Today, the living parts of the Catholic Church are those committed to a truth-centered evangelization that manifests itself in compassionate witness as well as compelling proposal. Read More
Why did the Wall fall, 30 years ago?
By George Weigel on Nov 20, 2019 03:01 am November 9 marked the 30th anniversary of the peaceful breach of the Berlin Wall — the symbolic high point of the Revolution of 1989, which would be completed seven weeks later by the fall of [...] Read in browser » 
GUY SORMAN
When the Wall Came Down Thirty years on, a reminder of the truth about all totalitarian regimes
Why Did the Berlin Wall Fall?
by Barbara J. ElliottThe Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain seemed to be permanent fixtures of the political landscape of Europe after 1961. But to everyone’s surprise, the Berlin Wall opened on November 9, 1989. This stunning event triggered a chain reaction throughout Eastern Europe, accelerating a process that had begun a decade earlier. As it turns out, I was an eyewitness to much of this chapter of history. I was there in Germany when the Berlin Wall opened up in November 1989 to great jubilation, and I helped people who fled communism start a new life in the West... [MORE] Remember, Remember the 9th of November by Bradley J. BirzerSocialism did not kill merely the body—it sought to extinguish the soul and all belief in anything transcendent in the human person. As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is time to remember and reclaim man’s oldest faith, a faith in one Almighty God who make each of us in His glorious image. Only then can we challenge the so-called wisdom of this world... [MORE] Candles Behind the Wall by Barbara J. ElliottIn this video, Dr. Barbara J. Elliott remembers the fall of the Berlin Wall, and draws attention to the individuals who, through faith and love, made this momentous event possible. Having interviewed many of those who were imprisoned, beaten, ostracized, and forced underground during the rule of the communist East German regime, Dr. Elliott tells with passion the stories of the triumph of these tireless souls. They were the ones who chased away the darkness with the light of their hope. They were, as Dr. Elliott so aptly puts it, the candles behind the wall... [MORE] The Infinite Imagination by Paul KrauseThe Christian imagination, unlike the imaginations of the Far East or the pagans, calls the mind upward into the vast expanse beyond the stars to meet with God face-to-face. For man, differentiated from the rest of the animals, has his head situated to gaze upon the infinite expanse of space and be called to communion with the God of inexhaustible abundance... [MORE]
The 30th Anniversary Of The Fall Of The Berlin Wall
featuring Peter M. Robinson, Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Kotkin, David Holloway, Timothy Garton Ash, Norman M. Naimark, Niall Ferguson, Robert Service, Victor Davis Hanson, Michael McFaul, Amir Weiner via Hoover Daily Report
A Century Of Ideas: Labor And Capital Market Policy: From Ideas To Actions Over One Hundred Years
via The Hoover Centennial Nowhere are good economic ideas more important for growth and stability than in labor and capital markets. Enormous technological, political, and demographic shifts in the past one hundred years have changed what is feasible and what works in practice. Panelists will discuss how ideas about the roles of government and private enterprise have changed, how good ideas stressing economic freedom can be advanced into action, and the influence of globalization on the ability of governments to apply good ideas to capital flows and immigration.  John Henry Newman: Conscience of the Age By Glenn Arbery on Oct 31, 2019 10:00 pm What John Henry Newman says about conscience shocks the modern secular sensibility, which treats it (if at all) as the “socially constructed” result of any number of cultural influences. The conscience is a messenger from God: giving saints courage to resist tyranny, even unto death. The canonization of John Henry Newman was momentous for ... Read in browser » The “Confessions” of Bruce Springsteen: “Western Stars,” the Film By Stephen M. Klugewicz on Oct 31, 2019 10:00 pm Bruce Springsteen's unrivaled stage presence comes across remarkably well in the film "Western Stars," as he performs his recent album in its entirety. But it is the brief, meditative, and confessional vignettes he uses to introduce each song that reveal just how much the entire album serves as his own version of St. Augustine's "Confessions." ... Read in browser » Shakespeare and the Saints By Joseph Pearce on Oct 31, 2019 10:00 pm When most of us think of Shakespeare we don’t immediately connect him with the saints. We might think of the play Sir Thomas More, on which he collaborated with other contemporary playwrights and which was banned during his lifetime for its volatile pro-Catholic perspective. We might connect him with the positive portrayal of Edward ... Read in browser » Why Ireland Snubbed St. John Henry Newman
John P. McCarthy Ireland, particularly its government, is now in the strange position of being simultaneously hostile and indifferent to Catholicism. An indication of the seemingly indifferent attitude toward the Catholic Church by Irish officialdom occurred in connection with the recent canonization of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Newman was the founding rector (or president) of University College Dublin. […] |
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