The Greeks had a wise saying: “Call no man happy until he is dead.” Celebrity culture calls a man happy as soon as he has enough followers on Facebook. We do not know enough about celebrities to call them “happy” as the biographies that come out after their deaths often demonstrate. We trivialize our goal of happiness when we take the appearance of happiness for the reality.  Happiness is not a “feeling,” but human flourishing. Human flourishing is having harmony... Read more

Evidently, a privilege helping me along life’s way has been my access of the pronoun “he.” Like all such privileges, it has existed apart from my knowing the gains. There are two approaches to take when one discover’s one’s undue privilege. One is to tax or otherwise burden the winner to equalize things for the loser. I do not think in our reactionary political climate that a Pronoun Tax would pass Congress. Like my bill for restitution to Appalachians (the... Read more

Cartoon movies lose allure when I look at a picture of my dad with my cousin Paul. Paul had no superpowers though he was a fine artist who spent a lifetime creating beauty in storefront windows in Charleston, West Virginia. He ended up in Europe killing Nazis, landing in Normandy, fighting in the Bulge, surviving in a POW camp, escaping and going home. My first world problems are brought into perspective. As the West pants for ever more libertine values... Read more

Christians need to stop reading the news and thinking doom is coming tomorrow. Doom might be coming, but it does not come in time for the news. By the time the seeds sown in one generation bear awful fruit in the following, the next generation no longer remembers what had come before their own time. Christendom is timeless: we live in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. We are always losing in this age to somebody about something, but in two... Read more

Forget retreat. Triumphalism is two centuries ago. The time has come to change our strategic thinking as Christians. We should not retreat from the culture or pretend the culture is friendly. Assume the barbarians control the old key points and best cities. The time has come to build a new city, develop a better alternative culture, and compete with ideas. Christianity is true and the fads of this century will soon be dated. If America wishes to go to the... Read more

Today is the feast of Constantine: one of those rare heroes that certain people love to hate and blame for everything. Left-wing Christians blame him for bringing Imperial power to  a more pure Christianity as if the three hundred years between the death of Jesus and Constantine’s rule never happened. Evidently, the Church should have rejected the Emperor’s conversion and urged him to return to state persecution of the Church so they could remain “pure.” The advocates of such views... Read more

If a film is good, does it cease to be “faith based?” That is my suspicion. Just as Bach is not categorized as Christian music so my favorite filmmaker, Tarkovsky, is seldom called “faith based.” Yet one cannot understand Tarkovsky without knowing something about Russian Orthodoxy and so the attribution is appropriate. I watched a film almost as good as some of the lesser Tarkovsky last week thanks to Hope. Tired of Avengers and Avengers clones she demanded a movie with depth, soul, and... Read more

A problem with “self-esteem” is that it makes it hard to be humble. How can I be humble in a constant cacophony of messages telling me to feel good about myself. The fact these messages are usually paid for by people selling me something does not make it any easier to ignore the shouts: “You are o.k.” In some ways, I am o.k., but in other ways I am not. What about the areas where, to quote my old report... Read more

Read about Clinton and her run for the White House and phrases like “most qualified” come up often. I have read that she is “the most qualified person to run for President.” Recently, I read a story where a women noted that her over-qualification for the Presidency is a sign of how good women have to be to achieve office. It is, if the stories are to be believed, almost unfair how ready she is to be President. Says one... Read more