The End of All Our Exploring

Last updated on: December 21, 2018 at 11:13 am By Esther O’Reilly

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

Last updated on: December 16, 2018 at 2:57 pm By Esther O’Reilly

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

Last updated on: December 1, 2018 at 1:34 pm By Esther O’Reilly

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

Last updated on: November 22, 2018 at 10:54 am By Esther O’Reilly

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

Last updated on: November 15, 2018 at 12:03 pm By Esther O’Reilly

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

Last updated on: November 10, 2018 at 12:38 am By Esther O’Reilly

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

5 Rules for Christian Voters On Election Day

Last updated on: November 5, 2018 at 1:18 pm By Esther O’Reilly

In anticipation of Election Day 2018, I am blowing the dust off an old article I wrote for Summit Ministries in the spring of 2016. Funnily enough, the “five rules” I came up with then still seem pretty applicable today (except at the time I called them “five principles,” but post-Jordan Peterson any article of this sort can’t not be called “X Rules For…”) So without further ado, here are my five rules for voting. 1. Know where your identity lies.... Read more

To Pittsburgh, And To Life

Last updated on: October 29, 2018 at 1:25 am By Esther O’Reilly

Others have already written at greater length than I will be able to muster about the Pittsburgh shooting, the largest anti-Semitic mass murder in U. S. history. I especially recommend that everyone go read Bari Weiss’s stirring tribute, if they have not done so already. A more fitting homage to Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood could not have been penned in this moment. When I encounter overwhelmingly sad news, bits of music tend to flood to mind. The news out of Pittsburgh... Read more

Creationism is Bigger Than the Age of the Earth Question

Last updated on: October 26, 2018 at 12:46 am By Esther O’Reilly

It’s not every day that you get to see Ken Ham pick a fight with Matt Walsh, but it happened this week, after the conservative firebrand posted a video explaining why he rejects young Earth creationism. Walsh states emphatically that the evidence has spoken loudly across multiple disciplines, that this is not a hill anybody should be dying on, and that evangelical Christians are damaging the impact of their witness by making it so. This was a follow-up to a... Read more

First Man is NASA’s American Sniper

Last updated on: October 18, 2018 at 11:37 pm By Esther O’Reilly

Last weekend was not a soaring opening weekend for Neil Armstrong biopic First Man. Bringing in about 16 million, it lagged behind films like Venom and A Star is Born, which are vying for portions of First Man’s already limited target audience. Some have wondered whether the film was additionally hurt by the controversy swirling around the presence of the American flag at the moon landing. (In fact, it does show the flag on the moon, but it does not show the moment when the flag... Read more