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Weekly Standard: C.S. Lewis and the Hound of Heaven
This article was originally posted at The Weekly Standard. A new one-man play about one man’s spiritual pilgrimage, C.S. Lewis on Stage: The Most Reluctant Convert, opens with a riff against a cruel, indifferent, and seemingly meaningless universe reminiscent of a Woody Allen monologue. “And what is ‘life’?” the protagonist asks in defending his youthful atheism. […]
Providence: Lessons from FDR’s Russia Policy
This article was originally posted at Providence. In his address to Congress this week, President Trump noticeably declined to mention his Byzantine relationship with Russia. The president defends his friendly posture toward Russia—including his campaign’s high-level contacts with Moscow, his praise of Vladimir Putin, and his selection of a Secretary of State with close business ties […]
Providence: Executive Orders, Nativism, and National Security
This article was originally posted at Providence. Warning about a rising tide of xenophobia, the American Civil Liberties Union assailed the White House’s most recent executive order as “the greatest deprivation of civil liberties in this country since slavery.” The administration that the ACLU had in its sights, however, was not that of Donald J. Trump. […]
National Interest: Can John Locke Save Political Islam?
Modern Islam will need a Locke, or someone like him, in its own hour of crisis.
The Times: Making America great again means welcoming Muslims
This article was originally posted at The Times. The presidency of Donald Trump, barely twenty-four hours old, has left many Muslims in the United States anxious about their futures. Although Trump has backed off his campaign pledge to ban Muslim immigration outright, talk of a Muslim “registry” persists. Some members of his cabinet, not to mention […]
BBC Interview: What Eisenhower Might Think of Trump
I was interviewed by the BBC about how a Trump presidency might stack up to that of Dwight D. Eisenhower—a leader with no prior political experience, but arguably one of the best prepared men imaginable to assume the presidency in a time of crisis.
Providence: Obama’s Farewell Address: Goodbye to All That
This article was originally posted at Providence. Perhaps the best-known memoir of post-war disillusionment is the 1929 book Goodbye to All That. In it, poet Robert Graves laid bare the confusion, cynicism, and loss of innocence brought on by the mechanized slaughter of the First World War. “Pessimism made everyone superstitious,” Graves wrote, “and I found […]
Georgetown Journal: Judgment Day: The Collapse of Soviet Communism
The peaceful disintegration of the Soviet Union twenty-five years ago, on December 26, 1991, astonished nearly everyone in the democratic West.
Providence: Reagan, the Soviets, & the Ash-Heap of History
This article was originally posted at Providence. In one of the most prophetic speeches of the twentieth century, Ronald Reagan predicted the moral and political collapse of the mighty Soviet Union—a full decade before it occurred. At a time when the liberal establishment took the continued presence and influence of Soviet communism for granted, Reagan saw […]
Providence: Countdown to Infamy
This article was originally posted at Providence. Twelve days before the Japanese attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor, one of the nation’s most prominent liberal clergymen, Charles Clayton Morrison, denounced the growing talk of American involvement in the European war against Nazism. As editor of the Christian Century, Morrison had used his influential magazine […]