Young Fogey - Notes from a student of human nature

5 Lessons Jordan Peterson Has Taught the Church

February 4, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

A year ago, I had no idea who Jordan Peterson was. Like many people, I got my first inkling after That Debate went viral. I was entertained, but I didn’t understand what I was watching. If you had told me then that this Canadian psychology professor was embarked on nothing less than a decades-long quest to rescue Western Civilization from the pit of nihilistic despair, I would have assumed you were joking. But Jordan Peterson, it seems, was not. As… Read more

What is an Evangelical?

January 26, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

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Last week, various people in my feed began retweeting this summary of what makes “a true evangelical” from Dr. Dustin Benge, a lecturer and administrative research assistant at The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies on the campus of Southern Seminary. Benge pulled these twelve points from the book What is an Evangelical? by David Martyn-Lloyd Jones (ML-J): A true evangelical:1. Bible-centered2. Watchful3. Distrusts reason4. Low view of the sacraments5. Studies history critically6. Acts upon beliefs7. Simplifies everything8. Loves the church9. Stresses new… Read more

“Bad” Pro-Life Arguments (Which Are Actually Good)

January 22, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

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Despite the media’s despicably skewed coverage of the past weekend’s events, hundreds of thousands of pro-life Americans were able to enjoy a day of solidarity at the March for Life, peacefully demonstrating for the rights of the most vulnerable among us. The day’s highlights included an excellent speech and live podcast by Ben Shapiro, who reviewed the pro-life case with a compelling photographic presentation of the unfolding unborn life. While outlining and dismantling various pro-choice arguments, he graphically described the… Read more

Jordan Peterson is Wrong About Abortion

January 2, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

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[Update, 01/04/19: Since my publishing this, an interview from June has come to my attention where Peterson unpacks his thoughts on this issue in slightly more depth than I’d heard before, with a focus on the legislative situation in Canada. The host asks him if there’s a way for some Canadian politician/party to “recapture the center” by focusing on sex-selective abortion, abortion past age of viability, etc. You can watch his answer from minute 27 to about minute 32. He starts… Read more

The End of All Our Exploring

December 21, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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This year, we marked the 175th birthday of A Christmas Carol. Yesterday, we marked the 72nd birthday of another Christmas institution. Three generations have now grown up with It’s a Wonderful Life. The story of George Bailey is a story with more layers than you would think, about more than you would think. It’s a story about duty. It’s a story about depression. It’s a story about human dignity. Ultimately, it’s a story about home. Young George is restless, ambitious, impatient to shake… Read more

Married, Pregnant, In Crisis

December 16, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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If you saw a woman walking into a crisis pregnancy center, what would your first thought be? She is pregnant and in crisis. That much you can safely assume. Beyond that, you could speculate: A single mom, most likely. She looks quite young, so probably an unwed mom. Maybe she’s considered an abortion and been steered towards better options. Maybe it’s her first. Maybe it’s her second. Then you do a double take. That’s when you realize it: That’s not… Read more

Book Review: A War of Loves

December 1, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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The cover design for David Bennett’s new book A War of Loves is striking. The reader’s eye is immediately drawn to the rainbow stripes in the background, and in the foreground, a fist closed around a sign bearing the book’s title. A closer look reveals something else: a cross necklace hanging from the bottom of the sign. What does the image mean? You’re not sure, but you’d like to read more. Mission: accomplished. Bennett’s book is subtitled “The Unexpected Story… Read more

What a Thanksgiving Classic Taught Me About Grace

November 22, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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Planes, Trains and Automobiles has been described as the quintessential Thanksgiving movie, even though the turkey barely gets five seconds of screentime. Perhaps it owes its enduring appeal to the very fact that it flips the holiday movie formula on its head. Neal Page wants very much to be home with his family, yet he spends all but the last few minutes of the movie with a complete stranger. Glimpses of the homecoming feast are held out as a tease in… Read more

The Gods We Make Will Fail Us

November 15, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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Last weekend’s plans did not include having a Twitter chat with Eric Weinstein about God. Nevertheless, that was a thing that happened last weekend. But first, I should explain who Eric Weinstein is. The very short version: Eric Weinstein is a mathematician, a physicist, an economist, and the guy who manages Peter Thiel’s money. Some of his side projects have included becoming an immigration expert, working to develop a new unifying theory, and most recently, christening the Intellectual Dark Web…. Read more

A Lament for Armistice Day, 2018

November 11, 2018 By Esther O’Reilly

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Today marks the 100th Anniversary of Armistice Day: November 11th, 1918. Perhaps it’s just me, but I haven’t seen a surplus of retrospective pieces about World War I this year, despite its being the centennial of the war’s end. Maybe this is because we here in America have never remembered the first Great War like Britain and Europe remembered it. We contributed, certainly. We had a brush with the war. But we crossed the ocean to meet the war. The… Read more