Young Fogey - Notes from a student of human nature

The Christian and the Atheist Should Be Friends

March 26, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

A couple weeks ago, a Christian friend and I did something some other Christians might find unusual: We spent an hour and a half mostly agreeing with an atheist. My friend was Neil Shenvi, the atheist was James Lindsay, the context was Justin Brierley’s show Unbelievable? and the topic was the religious character of critical theory and identity politics. Some readers might recognize James’s name from the Sokal-squared sting he executed in collaboration with Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose, exposing the academic… Read more

Book Review: The Right Side of History, by Ben Shapiro

March 19, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

11 Comments

[Note: I received a free review copy of this book. A positive review was not required.] It is 2019, and Western Civilization is having a crisis. Specifically, it is having a crisis of meaning. Suicide rates are rising, even among the wealthy and successful. Young children are questioning their gender. Young men are questioning existence itself. Killers are writing nihilistic manifestos and livestreaming their own crimes. We seem to be a ship unmoored, drifting on a sea of hopelessness… Read more

Saving Cinderella: A Conversation With Faith Moore

March 13, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

6 Comments

If you’re like me, you’re a sucker for old Disney movies, by which I mean actually old Disney movies (read: not 90s Disney movies). And if you’re a sucker for old Disney movies, you’re probably wondering what happened to the Disney princess movie. It turns out that I am not alone in asking this question. Faith Moore, daughter of crime author and conservative pundit Andrew Klavan, has written a new book that attempts to answer it in style. It’s called Saving… Read more

Has Christian Apologetics Failed?

March 2, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

105 Comments

In the past year, I have been writing extensively about the Jordan Peterson phenomenon and what the Church can take away from it. As I and friends of mine have observed, Peterson’s rise has been sparking a surprising and heartening renewal of interest in spiritual things generally and Christianity specifically. Pastors all around the world have reported that people, young men in particular, are literally wandering into their churches for the first time at a shockingly accelerated rate. By any… Read more

My Best Picture of 2018

February 21, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

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Like many of you, I will be otherwise occupied during the Oscars ceremony this weekend. In the past year, I have not kept up with film as closely as I used to and have missed all the names currently vying for Best Picture. However, from the admittedly small sample of movies I did see in 2018, one picture stood head and shoulders above the rest. So, for your consideration, I would like to present my best picture of 2018: The Rider…. Read more

5 Lessons Jordan Peterson Has Taught the Church

February 4, 2019 By Esther O’Reilly

34 Comments

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

22 Comments

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

9 Comments

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

27 Comments

[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

6 Comments

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

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