If an American Christian thinks the 1950’s were Paradise, he knows nothing about the African-American experience or what was happening in the Academy. Much of American pop culture was in the grip of scientism, American triumphalism, and elitism. This also existed in our elite educational institutions and political parties where the difference between Republicans and Democrat leaders was not as great as appeared to be at the time: Eisenhower and Kennedy were intellectual siblings. There was good in those times, but… Read more
June 7, 2019
The Lonesome Gods (A Problem of the 1950’s Generation AND Louis L’Amour)
June 7, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
June 6, 2019
The Mistborn Trilogy: Provoking, Entertaining Fiction (And Bonus on our Mormon Neighbor)
June 6, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson is the best fantasy series I have read in years. Recall, however, that fantasy as a genre is beset with Lord of the Rings look-a-likes and much that is terrible. This is not to praise Sanderson with faint damns, but to say that while not great literature, this is very good story telling and excellent world building all too rare in the genre. Why? Fans forget the depth of Tolkien came in part from his creating an extensive… Read more
June 5, 2019
D-Day 75: Rest In Peace Cousin Paul and Twenty-Somethings Get Ready for D-Day 150 Now
June 5, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
Seventy-five years ago, Cousin Paul was on a landing craft helping liberate Europe from Naziism. He was a long way from Charleston, West Virginia. He never spoke much of that time to me or about his later time (after the Battle of the Bulge) in a German POW camp. Cousin Paul sat up in the craft watching the coast come closer until the bullets got too close for sight seeing. When the boat “landed,” he watched an officer step off… Read more
June 4, 2019
What no man should want: A Lesson from Harriet Vane (Dorothy Sayers)
June 4, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
A curse might be that a male gets what he thinks he wants. If all men are mortal, as the logical syllogism asserts, then another assertion might be that most mortal men do not know what they want. When male desires are turned to women (the other gender), the probability of error is increased. Dorothy Sayers saw part of the problem for these men (God forgive me!) was a desire to make women dependent on men for meaning and happiness. Males make… Read more
June 3, 2019
Ten Books Not For the Summer of 2019, But For Every Summer
June 3, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
The summer book is a good read, an entertaining read, a book that works after going to Disneyland or on the beach. (I never have read a book on the beach, because in my life that meant sandcastles, giant sand tunnels made with shovels and not umbrellas and drinks. Ask Hope, Randy, and Kate. They can confirm. Yet if you are going to beach with umbrellas, then these are the books that endure.) Here are my rules for enduring summer books: They must… Read more
June 2, 2019
Ancient Witches IV (Guest Voice James Harrington)
June 2, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
I asked for new voices and got some outstanding writers! Today we hear from the erudite James R. Harrington. James R. Harrington earned his M.A. in Ancient History at California State University Fulleron and is a member of the Torrey Honors Institute. James has been a classical educator in a variety of settings over the past thirteen years. He lives in Houston with his wife, Sharon, and their daughter. Harrington began with a series on shields in classical literature and… Read more
June 1, 2019
Christ Washed The Feet of Judas (George Marion McClellan)
June 1, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
Mary and Martha, prayer and labor, grace and justice: that is the balance we all must achieve. Labor without grace can degenerate to ideology: mother of tyranny. Grace without works transforms amazing grace to platitudes masking cowardice or cooption God save us from academics who talk and do not do. God deliver us from works without grace. When weary, we should turn to good examples of the balance: Christians who knew ora et labora. Prayer without works is dead, prophetic calls to… Read more
May 31, 2019
The (Nearly) Boundless Soul (Heraclitus)
May 31, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
232 You would not find out the boundaries of soul, even by travelling along every path: so deep a measure does it have.* Heraclitus of Ephesus, theist and curmudgeon (a common combination), knew that people are interesting. That’s easy: such an aphorism could fit on a Salada tag. He went further by saying why this is true: the soul, the ground of our being, is deep. Our souls are not infinite: we do contain much, but not everything. Still, any person’s soul,… Read more
May 30, 2019
The Monotheistic Turn Toward Philosophy and Science: Against Polytheism and Atheism (Heraclitus)
May 30, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
250 Those who speak with sense must rely on what is common to all, as a city must rely on its law, and with much greater reliance. For all the laws of men are nourished by one law, the divine law; for it has as much power as it wishes and is sufficient for all and is still left over.* So said Heraclitus of Ephesus, one of the first philosophers in the Mediterranean world. He turned from the anti-intellectual polytheism… Read more
May 29, 2019
When the Athonite UFOs Land (I fail to explain UFOs Just Like Everyone Else Just Now)
May 29, 2019 By John Mark N. Reynolds
We have never met living beings from another world. There are UFOs. Will we contact beings from other worlds soon? When we do, and I hope we do, nobody has any idea what they will be or think. For some odd reason, science fiction this side of Ray Bradbury and CS Lewis has a secular tone. . . Writers assume we will face evil or good Nones from the Stars. That’s not very imaginative. If we allow ourselves a bit… Read more
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