Monthly Archives: August 2010

The Christian College in a Pluralist Society, Part II

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Dr. J

The second installment of the article to which I linked a few weeks ago is now online over at ISI. I wrote then that I wanted to see how the author was going to develop this idea of danger to … Continue reading →

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Slavery in Britain (today!), Odysseus’s Palace Discovered (?), and More

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Dr. J

After the Bible, the most important works of literature in the Western tradition are the Homeric epics. Every now and then archeologists find something that could plausibly be tied to the Trojan War or one of Homer’s principal characters. Case … Continue reading →

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Introducing Corey Olsen, “The Tolkien Professor”

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Dr. J

J.R.R. Tolkien was undoubtedly one of the greatest Christian authors and exponents of the Western tradition in the 20th century. When newspapers and book publishers conducted polls around the year 2000 asking readers to identify the greatest novel of the … Continue reading →

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Hollywood Holding its Nose and Making Christian Films

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Dr. J

Here is an interesting and evenhanded article from the New York Times about Christian films, particularly the upcoming What if . . ., which I know nothing about. There were a few telling passages in the article, such as the … Continue reading →

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Am I a Hedonist?

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Dr. J

My wife and I recently celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary with the most expensive meal either of us has ever eaten. As if that weren’t enough, yesterday we went to Costco and bought a 37″ television (our first-ever LCD TV) … Continue reading →

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A Conversation with Natural Law’s Leading Spokesman

Posted on August 18, 2010 by Dr. J

One of the most enduring contributions of the Western tradition is the concept of natural law, first articulated explicitly by the Stoics and later by numerous Christian philosophers and theologians. The natural law tradition offers a standing rebuke to the … Continue reading →

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How to Read a Book, Part II

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Dr. J

[This is the second in a series of posts on Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren’s classic work How to Read a Book. For the first post in the series, click here.] The second section of How to Read a … Continue reading →

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Divorce Getting Easier in New York, Hipster Christianity, and More

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Dr. J

It’s often said that the Western tradition is the product of three cities: Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome (in that order). Here is an article discussing the relationship between Rome and Athens, and how “captive Greece held captive her uncouth conqueror.” … Continue reading →

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The Mountain of Debt

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Dr. J

The president wants to “invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt.” That must be why the federal government runs trillion-dollar deficits, which aren’t big enough for this guy. (Thanks to Tad DeHaven.) The quasi-religious faith many … Continue reading →

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Introducing Thomas Fleming

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Dr. J

This week’s addition to the Blogroll is Dr. Thomas Fleming, president of the Rockford Institute and editor-in-chief of Chronicles magazine. Dr. Fleming is a classicist by training, and he never fails to challenge my assumptions about the ancient and medieval … Continue reading →

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