In claiming responsibility for the attack in Manchester at an Ariana Grande concert on May 22, the Islamic State group has sunk to a new low. We have seen terrorists target venues where young people congregate before – shopping malls, discos and schools. If IS was indeed involved, they have now deliberately targeted young children,
READ MOREI recently shared some statistics from Charles Murray’s book Coming Apart that illustrate some of the fundamental social and cultural changes that occurred in America during the last half-century. One fascinating bit of data I did not share touches on U.S. poverty levels, as well as American perceptions of poverty. In 1963, roughly 20 percent
READ MOREAfter reading Charles Murray’s writings the last few days, my mind has been fixated on some of the changes in America’s class structure and our (mis)perception of those changes. It made me wonder: Where exactly do I fall in the class stratosphere? Are my current perceptions accurate or are they way off? While Americans like
READ MOREI often remark to my acquaintances that Americans no longer tell jokes. Growing up, as a child, I was in possession of a healthy arsenal of jokes that I gleaned from my parents, relatives, and friends, and that I would eagerly relay to others when the opportunity arose. Decades later, I can’t remember a single
READ MOREI’ve been watching for a couple weeks now the saga of Paul Griffiths, Warren Professor of Catholic Theology at Duke University. For those unfamiliar, in February, Griffiths, an esteemed scholar who has taught at Notre Dame, the University of Chicago, and numerous other colleges, sent an email to colleagues urging them to not accept the
READ MOREWe live in an age in which our media frequently frames issues up as a choice between two extremes. In such an age, it’s tempting for those who consider themselves educated to consistently take the via media—the “middle way”—and to assume that the truth always amounts to a balanced compromise between the two sides of
READ MORE“A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things,” explains entrepreneur and author Jim Rohn. Many of us major in the practice of blaming. We spend so much time on the “who’s to blame” question that we have little mental bandwidth left to be effective. President Trump recently proclaimed his
READ MOREThe common narrative we hear today is that the world is becoming increasingly secularized, and that traditional religion is becoming a relic of the past. But there’s a counter-narrative that’s gaining currency, namely, that secularism is in crisis, and that the world is on the cusp of becoming more religious. The spiritual head of the
READ MOREGod, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. This is the Serenity Prayer, originally written by the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr around 1934, and commonly used by Alcoholics Anonymous and similar organisations. It is not just a key
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