There is a wonderful new website, “Why I’m Catholic,” or www.whyimcatholic.com. Among the many stories on this site is the one told by my friend, Richard Sherlock, Professor of Philosophy at Utah State University. Richard, who was received into the Catholic Church just this past Easter Sunday (2011), is a convert from Mormonism. He begins the account of his journey in this way: One should never leave the religion in which one was born or raised for anything but the most serious... Read more
That’s the title of my latest entry over at The Catholic Thing. It is adapted from portions of my August 3, 2011 presentation at the University of Colorado symposium commemorating the 40th anniversary of Thomson’s article. Here’s an excerpt: What Thomson is granting, then, is a view of personhood consistent with the pro-life position only insofar as it is aligned with a minimalist understanding of autonomy and choice. That view isolates the individual from other persons – generationally, contemporaneously, and institutionally – except... Read more
Tomorrow, August 3, I will be at the University of Colorado in Boulder participating in a symposium on the 40th anniversary of Judith Jarvis Thomson article, “A Defense of Abortion,” published in 1971 in Philosophy and Public Affairs. (For more on the symposium, go here. It is open to the public.) What makes Thomson’s argument so important is that she grants to the prolifer his most pivotal premise, that the pre-born human is a person from conception, but nevertheless concludes that... Read more
This is a nice interview of my friend, J. Budziszewski, Professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas. The gentleman interviewing J is Any Nash of Inside Academia. Here’s an outline of the interview, as found on the YouTube page on which the video has been embedded: 1:30 — What is Natural Law? (3 mins) 5:00 — We’re not at war with our nature when we reason (40 sec) 6:00 — How discipline and virtue define character (1... Read more
That is the name of an article I published last year on the website, Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, an online publication of The Witherspoon Institute. Here’s how it begins: While doing research for an academic paper on the topic of same-sex marriage and political liberalism, I was struck by how many authors, including judges, draw an analogy between bans on interracial marriage and the present law in almost every state in the United States that recognizes... Read more
President Obama should hire Rob Lowe’s character as a speech writer. Read more
Go here to find an outstanding video of my friend and co-author Greg Koukl (Founder and President of Stand to Reason) answering the question, “Is the account of Jesus in the Bible just copying earlier mythical traditions with similar stories? Behind Greg you will notice a stained glass panel. It was created by my wife, Frankie. The panel is owned by Stand to Reason’s Director of Operations, Melinda Penner. Here’s a close-up photo of the panel: If you want to... Read more
That’s the title of my latest entry over at the Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: The Atlantic has discovered the Reformation, albeit nearly five centuries too late. Writer Joshua Green reports that the denomination in which presidential candidate Michelle Bachman was a member, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), believes that Martin Luther was right about the Catholic papacy. Imagine that. Lutherans who believe ideas espoused by Luther. Shocking, isn’t it? Perhaps next week the Atlantic will inform its readers that the... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In