I finished listening to Anthony Esolen's Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture this week. I discovered Esolen reading Touchstone magazine, and I found his lecture at their Fight or Flight conference to be particularly compelling. When I heard he had a book out on a similar topic, I used an Audible credit to download… Continue reading Book Review: Esolen’s “Out of the Ashes”
St. Valentine and the Tyranny of Aphrodite
Today is February 14 -- the day history tells us St. Valentine was martyred. It also marks 51 days since retail stores were stocked with heart-shaped boxes of chocolate, shiny red balloons, innumerable stuffed animals, and enough Hallmark cards to provide kitschy reading material for even the longest winter. Of course, since St. Valentine is… Continue reading St. Valentine and the Tyranny of Aphrodite
What are Men and Women for?
I've been working my way through J. Budziszewski's On the Meaning of Sex over the last couple weeks in preparation for an article I'm planning to write. So far, it's packed with pithy phrases and too many quotable lines -- the struggle to not annoy my Facebook friends with too much information is real sometimes.… Continue reading What are Men and Women for?
Rediscovering “Passion and Purity”
This summer, when I turned to the first page of Elisabeth Elliot’s “Passion and Purity,” I tried to have an open mind. Through the years, I’ve read dozens of books about dating and marriage, and unfortunately many have fallen flat in the face of extended singleness. Amid the recent mass cynicism toward purity culture (culminating… Continue reading Rediscovering “Passion and Purity”
Book Review: Elliot’s “Suffering is Never for Nothing”
Autumn finally arrived this week in the Ozarks. The record-breaking, sweltering September finally gave way to October, and today it is cool with steadily falling rain. I curled up this morning and finished Elisabeth Elliot's Suffering is Never for Nothing, a posthumous transcription of some conference talks she gave years ago. While the writing isn't… Continue reading Book Review: Elliot’s “Suffering is Never for Nothing”
