Jan
11
Growing Pains
January 11, 2006 | Leave a Comment
In 1970, when I was twelve years old, I bought my very first record album: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band, by the Beatles. I actually remember what I paid for it, too: $2.95. New. Those were the days. I didn’t have a record player, though, so I had to listen to it on my [...]
Jan
8
A Book of Minutes
January 8, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I’ve just finished reading John Reeves’ A Book of Hours (Eerdman’s, 2001), and I must say that the title is something of a misnomer since I was able to read all of it in about 30 minutes. The title, obviously, is drawn from the Christian devotional tradition of the late medieval period, not the length [...]
Jan
8
Das Glasperlenspiel
January 8, 2006 | Leave a Comment
When I made my little sojourn to New York last week I took along Charles Murray’s Human Accomplishment (Perennial, 2003) to read on the plane. Some folks may remember Murray as one of the co-authors, with Richard Herrnstein, of The Bell Curve, a book whose thesis would appear to be one of the most misbegotten [...]
Jan
7
A Tough Call
January 7, 2006 | Leave a Comment
In today’s Wall Street Journal there’s a front-page story about Joshua Hochschild, an assistant professor of philosophy at Wheaton College whose contract has not been renewed because of his recent converson to Roman Catholicism. The story emphasizes the growing trend towards “mission purity” at some religious campuses: for many years plenty of Protestant and Catholic [...]
Jan
3
At the Name of Jesus
January 3, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Today is the (optional!?) memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus. We live in times that seem to need this day to be something rather more than a mere optional memorial. Too often one hears Our Lord’s most holy name being used as an epithet one applies to one’s worst enemies or most despised [...]
Jan
1
Religion and Resentment
January 1, 2006 | Leave a Comment
One of my colleagues here at Ohio University, David Curp of the History Department, has offered an interesting alternative explanation for Islamist attitudes towards the West. A view that has been circulating rather widely claims that there is great resentment among certain sectors of the Muslim community over Western incursions into traditionally Islamic areas of [...]
