Culture

Forward the Foundation

The Times has been talking actively about the fight over the future of book publishing. The fight is getting serious. I think society will have to figure out two issues with regard to books: What is the best format in which to read this particular book? Codex? Kindle?...

[Elegant and Humorous Piscine Pun Here]

It's like Long John Silver's. Fish is on a roll. He even tells us who wrote Hebrews! Thanks, Dr. Fish! Really, you're missing out on the most remarkable writing at nytimes.com if you fail to click on my Stanley Fish links.

One of the Most Amazing Websites I Have Ever Seen

The Ten Boom Museum website has a fantastic virtual tour; make sure to listen to the audio at each “station.” Tip: follow the arrows, or click the one at the right of all the icons in the center of the bottom menu. I was deeply moved by the Christian testimony of this...

Politics Close-Up

Matt Bai cuts through some spin on both sides of the aisle and shows how each side can plausibly believe its own spin. He demonstrates with some intrepid reporting how politics actually happens on a personal level. Pretty fascinating, even for someone who often finds...

A Sop for Prescriptivists, OR, Language Change Isn’t All Bad

Wit, today, is Frasier Crane. (Or so I recall from my sad days as a surreptitious sitcom watcher in the 1990s. I don’t know who wit is now.) Wit is the capacity of someone to dazzle others with incisive, off-the-cuff, humorous comments or banter. Wit wasn’t always...

Keller’s Answer to a Very Common Objection to Christianity

An exceedingly common evolutionary argument runs like this: “You can’t trust your religious feelings; they were just mechanisms developed by evolution that helped your ancestors survive.” Tim Keller gives a great answer: It proves too much. If that’s the case, then...

Read Fish

Read Fish. Now.

Freeloading Atheists

Justice has to have strong foundations if it is to remain resilient in the face of the world’s many threats. Secularism denies having any ultimate, absolute foundations. Therefore it won’t be able to sustain any commitments to true justice. Any foundations it has are...

Barack Obama on Faith in the Public Square

For the first time in many years, a radio station other than NPR has managed—sometimes—to win my listenership during my daily commute. It’s 92.9 FM, aka Christian Talk 660. I have to admit I usually can’t stand the brash talk programs (the one exception is local...