Culture

Is Trueman a Marxist? Well, as that nice, loyal Mr Lieberman might say, `That's a good question!' And, as it now appears that it is not seeing class struggle but rather belief in graduated income tax that defines a Marxist, I guess I do stand in that long line of Marxists which -- ahem -- includes...

Christians often strike me as the most Freudian of people. Say what you like, I have a sneaking suspicion that Freud, rather than Augustine, Luther, or Calvin, probably offers the best insights into the way that Christians really think and act. Let me explain with some examples. The other day I was...

As a historian who is paid to look at the past, I find myself frequently indulging in rants about how we live in an anti-historical age, where history is not taken seriously. Typically, of course, I am referring to those who are so absorbed in the perpetual cultural flux that is consumerism that...

There is something aleatoric about the content of these columns. Frankly, it depends on what has been buzzing around my head in the last seven days. And what is it this week? Well, a conversation with a Jewish lady who sat next to me on a flight from Toronto to Atlanta! I'd been upgraded--bliss!...

It is arguable that the last hundred years have witnessed an interesting reversal in Western society, where the great taboo of the Victorian era and the great obsession of the same period have dramatically switched places. The great taboo for Victorians was, of course, sex. Human beings all depend...

A friend of mine, some five years ago now, introduced me to Vigen Guroian when he suggested I read Inheriting Paradise (Eerdmans, 1999), a short but immensely satisfying meditation on the relationship of theology to gardening. Earlier this year, I was pleased to find that Guroian had continued his...

Teaching history is probably one of the more depressing activities in which one can engage in the current climate. At an academic level, the discipline has been in self-destruct mode for some time, losing itself in a morass of hyperspecialised narratives, nihilistic epistemologies and general...

In an article in the Chicago Tribune this week, Jodi Cohen and Maegan Carberry discussed the case of Kate Darmody, a winning member of the National Championship Women's Lacrosse team from Northwestern University. She, along with her fellow players had been invited to the White House to meet the...

Recently, I had occasion to fly to Korea via San Francisco. Flying across the US on a clear day is one of those rare pleasures which really allows you to get the geographical measure of the place: how flat much of the country is; how the snow-capped Rockies push the land upwards towards the sky in...

The Braves are playing poorly. Not that I'd notice too much. You see, it's my wife's love--baseball that is, not mine. And she has lost something of her joie de vivre . I try to console, but when those guys swing and miss all the time, it makes for an unhappy time. Baseball is her way of relaxation...