Almost everyone agrees that rates of transgender identification are skyrocketing , especially among young girls . But nobody seems to agree on the cause.  ..read more

When the always well-written and often wrongheaded New Yorker dislikes something, chances are good that I’ll like it—a principle that holds, with certain reservations, in the case of Dignitas Infinita , the April 8th “ Declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Human Dignity.” The Declaration underscores the Catholic Church’s commitment to the defense of every human life from conception until natural death, calls Catholics to compassionate care for the most vulnerable among us, defends the biblical idea of the human person as defined in Genesis 1:27–28, and offers a welcome ..read more

A quote from a Dorothy L. Sayers novel has lately been on my mind. “I was a scholar once,” says an acquaintance of Harriet Vane, the highly successful protagonist of the novel, at a university reunion in a fictional Oxford college. Harriet’s acquaintance had married a farmer and left the life of the mind behind in the myriad of chores and children that farm life demanded. I remembered the wistful phrase while my husband and I were hosting college students at our home, and I thought of my own transformative college years ..read more

The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom by larry loftis william morrow, 384 pages, $16.49  ..read more

Two recent books cry out to be reviewed together: Nadya Williams’s Cultural Christians in the Early Church: A Historical and Practical Introduction to Christians in the Greco-Roman World ; and Nijay K. Gupta’s Strange Religion: How the First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling . What I have to offer here is not a review (much as a range of such assessments from various angles and for various audiences is to be desired) but rather some ruminations occasioned by the conjunction of these two books ..read more

On September 10, 2023, Pope Francis beatified Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, along with their seven children. The entire family was executed by the Germans on March 24, 1944; their crime was hiding a family of eight Jews. When the Germans discovered the hiding place, they murdered all the Jews on the spot, then killed Józef and Wiktoria in front of their children. Finally, they slaughtered the kids, the eldest of whom was eight. Wiktoria was nine months pregnant with her seventh child ..read more

I recently revisited a book that I had not read for many years: Robert P. Ericksen’s Theologians Under Hitler . It is a study of how three intellectuals, Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch—scholars of the Old Testament, Luther, and Kierkegaard, respectively—came to support Hitler in 1933 and ultimately be identified with an evil ideology that cost millions of lives, both in the death camps and in the war that German expansionism precipitated.  ..read more

What exactly is a liberal education, and why is it important? Many see higher education as a gateway to a successful life, and, more particularly, to a successful career. A college education is an expensive undertaking, yet a typical college graduate brings home about 80 percent more earnings than she would have without her degree. With such high stakes, the tangible benefits are impossible to ignore. This vocational perspective is often placed in contrast with a liberal education that expands graduates' horizons, giving them a greater appreciation of their world and better skills at making pr ..read more

Since the recent passing of Senator Joe Lieberman, many have testified to his humanity, decency, and integrity—his excellence as a person, an American, and a Jew. I remember him as gracious and friendly from the first time we met. It was 1992 and my first week working as a staffer for Senator John (“Jack”) Danforth (R-MO). Walking across the atrium of the Hart Senate building, I suddenly heard Lieberman’s unmistakable voice call out “Jeff Ballabon!” And there he was, striding toward me with a huge smile, hand extended. A little starstruck and completely dumbfounded, I asked him how he even kne ..read more

I’m listening to a seminar in early modern thought. The subject is  Meditations , the landmark treatise on doubt and knowledge by René Descartes. Inside a stately nineteenth-century mansion on one of the squares in old Savannah, eleven students pull up to a table and turn toward the man seated at the end, Professor Douglas Hedley. For the next two-and-a-half hours, with a short break partway through, Hedley leads a discussion of “I think therefore I am,” the evil genius, and God’s infinitude ..read more