Self-esteem bad for you!
Recent studies prove: self-esteem is bad for you. There’s no substitute for dealing with reality and calling problems problems. I wonder if that principle has any relevance to happy talk within the Church?
James Kalb
1984 redux
The EU ministry of truth in action: Vikings? Such friendly folk, say textbooks. The official story told schoolchildren today, it seems, is that Europe has always been a sort of idealized EU living in happy harmony with its Muslim neighbors.
In the meanwhile, the Canadians have noticed a problem: “We … are terrible in … More ...
Neutrality as to ultimates?
An activist group, the Alliance Defense Fund, has placed advertisements in major university newspapers urging students to report incidents of anti-Christian bigotry on campus and providing a toll-free number and email address for the purpose. According to the group’s chief counsel, “Students must understand that the protections of the First Amendment do not stop … More ...
God brings good out of evil
If the gender deconstructors do succeed, what then? A clue may be provided by The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde. If the institutions and attitudes that make ordinary life possible are abolished then the alternative to beastliness will be sanctity, and many will choose it. Remember that the battle is never lost.
True love waits
As counterpoint to the “queering the schools” agenda, here’s a footnote-laden Family Research Council report on Abstinence until Marriage: The Best Message for Teens. We’ve touched before on the widespread technocratic prejudice against “abstinence-only” sex-ed programs. Nonetheless, it should be obvious that it’s the abstinence curricula that are based on reason and common sense … More ...
O Times, o customs
Since the New York Times plays such an important role in defining American public life, accounts of life backstage are of some interest: ‘Republic of Fear’. It seems that things have gotten really nasty under the rule of new editor Howell Raines. We have pointed out that “diversity” makes terror and utter inefficiency the … More ...
O tempora, o mores
A tale of two causes: “queering the schools”—mainstreaming homosexual and polymorphously perverse themes throughout education—goes forward, and the only people who complain are said to be homophobic cranks. Meanwhile, it’s a huge scandal if the Secretary of Education praises Christian schools very moderately (“all things being equal, I’d prefer to have a child in … More ...
Afghanistan now as ever
Why does September 11 mean we should care about this? Old warlord proves thorn in the side of Afghan government. Afghanistan has never been fully under the control of any government. On the whole, that has not been so bad for those on the scene. So why should our soldiers stay there and try … More ...
Marriage as whatever is called marriage
In London, Ontario, a judge declined to recognize three people as the legal parents of a single child (the mother, the father, and the mother’s lesbian partner). And in an older London, the Lords rejected a request to interpret English law as permitting transsexual marriage.
The victory for the traditional definition of the family was … More ...
“Engaging the culture”
Christian conservatives sometimes talk about “engaging the culture,” meaning participating in mainstream public life with a view to influencing the habits and standards it presumes. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. “The culture,” as authoritatively represented by all respectable public institutions, holds that values are simply personal preferences to be aggregated and reconciled with … More ...