Category: Society

Protestants must rekindle intellectual fires and set terms for the emerging era. Serious thinkers, many of whom grace The American Reformer, are well underway with that project.

The foundations of our republic now face the universal solvent of gender ideology as identity politics mutates into medicalized violence and self-harm.

Cultural Christianity never saved anyone, and to the degree that it covered over sin and wickedness, God hated it, and we ought to condemn it. But cultural Christianity, however imperfect, was and is a manifestation of the Tao. In that sense, it tills the soil to prepare it for the seed. As Lewis said, it gives us something to work on and to work with. It teaches us through laws and customs and cultural practices the reality of the Tao, of God’s moral order. So, cultural Christianity never saved anyone, but it did give many a sense of sin and guilt, which prepared them for the good news of Jesus. 

Drawing on nature, history, literature, science, common experience, and Scripture, Anthony Esolen defends a traditionalist understanding of manhood, an understanding that recognizes the good and unique differences between men and women and the consequently different roles for men and women in the family, society, politics, and the church.

Liberalism, democracy, individual Lockean property rights, and freedom of thought—these Joel Kotkin offers up as the elements of the lost golden age to which he hopes we may return. Indeed, he actively pours scorn on the more interdependent, organic model of society that characterized our pre-liberal past, deeming it one of the elements of “feudalism” to be shunned. Any thoughtful reading of our current cultural predicament will show that we will need something stronger than warmed-over post-war liberalism to escape the dystopian future that Kotkin so vividly portrays.

Passing socially conservative legislation can indeed create a real business cost. But that cost is generally not as high as the headlines would suggest. Social policy is but one of many factors that drive overall decisions by individuals and corporations. Perhaps abortion will reset the clock back to the previous era circa 2000, but that’s not yet evident.

In George Yancy’s Beyond Racial Division he challenges the two most prevalent models for understanding race in our culture, "colorblindness" and "antiracism." While his overall approach is excellent, Beyond Racial Division is flawed in certain respects. Its shortcomings are found not primarily in what it says, but in what it fails to say.

The world’s definition of compassion is unquestioned affirmation and inoffensiveness. The problem with this sort of thinking is that, at best, it’s sub-Christian, and, at worst, deeply non-Christian. Biblical compassion is the application of Christ-like mercy to individuals who are caught in situations of duress. Rather than celebrate or affirm duress, true compassion and true love rejoice in the truth (1 Cor. 13:6). Perpetuating falsehood under a false rubric of compassion is how the Enemy would have us hate our neighbor.

We should not be surprised that Critical Theory can be understood as a kind of religion—a kind of idolatrous endeavor which cannot but help think about ultimate realities in a way which both borrows from traditional biblical themes and categories, while simultaneously corrupting, marginalizing, and even mocking them.

There are frightening sexual trends among females that deserve our attention. Nowhere is this clearer—at least for conservative Christian believers concerned with transmitting a sound, biblical sexual ethic to the next generation—than in matters related to beliefs about sexuality and sexual practice.