Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

At the Intersection of Faith and Culture

A few weeks ago, I read and reviewed Ilana Mercer’s Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.  A week or two after that, my grandmother passed away.  Considered in themselves, each of these events is entirely distinct from the other.  But, interestingly, reflection upon the loss of my beloved grandmother has…

Imagine that you discovered the following facts about a stranger. First, for roughly two decades, he not only attended a church, but donated thousands and thousands of dollars to it.  Second, this stranger’s church is presided over by a pastor who the stranger regards as his “spiritual mentor,” the person who he credits with leading…

The question concerning the relationship between faith and politics is one that has arrested the attention of many an American.  But it is during election seasons, particularly presidential election seasons, that it assumes a larger than usual importance in the American consciousness.  It is during this time that candidates exhaust themselves explaining the respects in…

The notion that moral conduct is primarily a matter of “obeying” rules or principles alleged to be universal in scope has figured prominently throughout the modern era.  The moral point of view, according to this line of thought, requires the strictest impartiality.  This idea has been expressed in a variety of idioms, the most dominant…

This is the 35th anniversary of the ground breaking television miniseries, Roots.  Based on Alex Haley’s wildly successful novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, the epic miniseries starred an ensemble cast—several members of which recently visited with Oprah Winfrey on her new network (OWN) to commemorate this occasion. This is worth commenting upon…

Although theory and practice are indeed mutually distinct domains, their distinctness should never be taken for exclusiveness. Theory is as distinct from practice as is the spider from its web or the bird from its nest. Moreover, just as the web arises from the spider and the nest from the bird, so too is theory born from…

Ilana Mercer’s, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, is an unusual book.  Yet it is unusual in the best sense of the word. At once autobiographical and political; philosophical, historical, and practical; controversial and commonsensical, Cannibal succeeds in weaving into a seamless whole a number of distinct modes of thought. …

Thankfully, the twentieth GOP presidential debate has come and gone. If the American voter doesn’t know these candidates by now, he never will. Of the four remaining candidates, three are virtually indistinguishable from one another.  This much has been established time and time again throughout this election season.  It is true, of course, that there…

Given that Republicans will select their presidential nominee before we know it, and given that three of the four candidates in the GOP field are neoconservatives, it would behoove us to revisit neoconservatism.  By looking at specific thinkers widely recognized as representatives of neoconservatism, we will soon see that far from being an “anti-Semitic” or…

I recently submitted what I took to be a spirited defense of Ron Paul to a well regarded right-leaning publication—that is to say, a publication that is widely esteemed by more than a few establishment neoconservative Republican pundits.  It was rejected.  In what follows, I relay both the essentials of my argument as well as my…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners