New Criterion You don’t have to be an art critic to see something tasteless going on at Pratt Institute. Since 1887, this venerable New York institution has been dedicated to educating “artists and creative professionals to be responsible contributors to society.” Yet teachers and administrators at Pratt have been nothing but irresponsible in their recent dealings with a fifth-year drawing student named Steve DeQuattro. http://www.newcriterion.com/posts.cfm/Conservative-artist-boxed-out-at-Pratt-6478 Read more

New York Times One of the mysteries that scholars have puzzled over for centuries is the exact shade of blue represented by “tekhelet,” which the Bible mentions as the color of ceremonial robes donned by high priests and ritual prayer tassels worn by the common Israelite. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/world/middleeast/28blue.html Read more

One of the last great efforts at state-sponsored atheism is a failure. And not just any kind of failure. China has enforced its anti-religion policy through decades of repression, coercion and persecution, but the lack of success is spectacular, according to a major new study. http://blogs.thearda.com/trend/featured/rising-religious-tide-in-china-overwhelms-atheist-doctrine/ Read more

Matt Franck President Obama’s decision to refuse to defend DOMA is not an act of executive assertion so much as an expression of deep deference to the courts. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/03/2827 Read more

‘I am one of those who helped usher in this barbaric age.’ After putting thousands of unborn children to death, he became one of the great leaders of the pro-life movement. http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/bernard-nathanson-dead-at-84 Read more

David Mills No one would criticize the Yves St. Laurent company for dismissing a part-time salesman who was also managing a store selling inferior clothes called Yves St. Laurence, or the Tommy Hilfiger company for letting go a junior executive who also ran a knock-off clothing company named after a Tommy Hilfinger. Everyone would understand their desire to protect their name and brand. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/02/the-catholic-brand-the-real-gospel Read more

David Horovitz Historian Bernard Lewis diagnoses the fundamental cause of the region-wide explosion of protest, and dismisses Western notions of a quick fix. http://www.jidaily.com/rOxVA/e Read more

Jeremy Kessler As Oxford professor Peter Harrison details in The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century originators of modern science regarded Adam as the first and greatest scientist. Central to the development of our contemporary scientific culture, according to Harrison, was the Protestant Reformation’s insistence on the cataclysmic and continuing effects of Adam’s Fall from perfection. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/out-of-the-garden-into-the-laboratory Read more

CALL FOR PAPERS 1st Circular The Institute of English Studies, The Centre for Hermeneutical Research of Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary and The Hungarian Bible Society are proud to announce an interdisciplinary conference on “THE KING JAMES BIBLE (1611-2011): PREHISTORY AND AFTERLIFE” Budapest September 16-18, 2011 Proposals related to any literary, linguistic, cultural or theological aspects of the subject are invited from scholars wishing to contribute. Our institution is named after the 16th century Reformed Pastor... Read more

The Middle East meant only Israel to many. Now the lives of millions of Arabs have been brought to Europe’s attention. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/27/nick-cohen-arab-middle-east-conflict Read more