Lebanon on the Brink
Thu 15 May 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
The international community is proving feckless in restraining the influence of Hezbollah and thus Iran in Lebanon.
Has Lebanon, one of the few states in the Arab world with a free press, free elections, and a broadly pro-Western orientation, finally plunged into the abyss of an Islamofascist dictatorship? It looked very like that last week as Hezbollah gunmen, well-armed and well-trained, poured into the streets of Beirut and for a while controlled the city and much of the country. Lebanon appeared about to resume the civil war that ravaged it between 1975 and 1990. More than fifty people died in clashes between rival militias.
A Cultural Manifesto and Showcase
Thu 15 May 2008 • Responses: 0 • by William Edgar
T. M. Moore, Culture Matters: A Call for Consensus on Christian Cultural Engagement, Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2007. 172 pp.
Christians have not been silent on the issue of faith and culture. Among the major initiatives of recent times we can mention at least four, though there are many more.1
The first is the Neo-Thomist movement of the twentieth century. Etienne Gilson (1884–1978) and especially Jacques Maritain (1882–1973) brought a fresh approach to culture into a struggling and fatigued Europe. Though raised in Protestant circles, Maritain converted to Roman Catholicism in 1906 under the influence of Charles Péguy, Henri Bergson, and especially Léon Bloy. A defender of metaphysics and natural law ethics, he was out of step with the prevailing critical schools and language philosophies. Maritain advocated an “integral humanism,” which was based on a high view of human nature, which in turn is derived by analogy from God the Creator. He was a principal architect of Christian Democracy, believing that a new Christendom could be achieved on condition it fully recognized diversity. He also thought deeply about the arts. Many belong to this family, including David Burrell, Bernard Lonergan, Michael Novak, Richard John Neuhaus, and even some Protestants.
Steep Trajectory
Wed 07 May 2008 by Al Sikes
Free Lunch Writ Large
We are deep in the blame game over the housing bubble, writes Al Sikes. Mortgage brokers, banks, rating agencies, property flippers, and regulators have all made the list. Perhaps somebody should go upstream in a search for the real culprit.
McClay at the White House
Tue 06 May 2008 • Responses: 0 • by TTF Staff
Senior Fellow Wilfred M. McClay recently spoke at a reception in the East Room of the White House honoring the 265th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson. You can read a transcript of his talk here, courtesy of the Ethics & Public Policy Center.
So let it be for his ideas that we honor Jefferson, above all else. And for the cause of human freedom and human dignity that he so eloquently championed. His failings may weigh against the man, but not against the cause for which he labored so heroically. That should be a lesson to us today. Like Jefferson, we all are carriers of purposes far larger than we know. Purposes whose full realization cannot be achieved in our lifetime, or even be fully understood by us, but which we are called to carry forward as faithfully as we can—as charges to keep.
Johnston on Speaking of Faith
Tue 06 May 2008 • Responses: 0 • by TTF Staff
Senior Fellow Douglas Johnston was featured on a recent edition of the public radio program, Speaking of Faith. The greatest threat in the post-Cold War world, he says, is the prospective marriage of religious extremism with weapons of mass destruction. Yet the U.S. spends most of its time, resources, and weapons fighting the symptoms of this threat, not the cause. The diplomacy of the future, he is showing, must engage religion as part of the strategic solution to global conflicts.
China, Tibet, and the Olympics
Mon 05 May 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
Placing the Olympics above world politics is a valiant but vain hope.
When the French nobleman and historian Baron Philipe de Coubertin revived the idea of the Olympic Games in Paris in 1894, he was motivated by both nationalism and idealistic internationalism. He felt the French had lost their war with Prussia in 1870 because of their poor physical conditioning. But de Coubertin had also been inspired by an English physician, botanist, and magistrate, William Penny Brookes. Another eccentric idealist and philanthropist, Brookes had first organized an “Olympian Games” in 1850 in the English rural village of Much Wenlock, Shropshire. De Coubertin visited the Much Wenlock Olympics in 1890, and returned to France inspired.
A Tale of Temptation for Our Times
Mon 28 Apr 2008 • Responses: 0 • by Joseph Loconte
Thoughts on ‘The Screwtape Letters’
Senior Fellow Joseph Loconte looks at the themes behind C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters—both the original book and the current stage play, suggesting that the bond between faith and reason points to the deepest mystery of human existence.
A Brief Chat with Screwtape
Mon 28 Apr 2008 • Responses: 0 • by Max McLean
Playing the Devil in D. C.
Actor Max McLean describes what it is like to play Screwtape in the stage adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, playing at the Lansburgh Theatre in Washington D.C. through May 18, 2008.
Christ for Culture
Sun 27 Apr 2008 • Responses: 0 • by T. M. Moore
Enduring Standards in a Confused Age
Surely there is a better way to do culture than the one which has produced American Idol? T. M. Moore makes a radical proposal that there is. He says we must learn to look beyond mere personal preference and our current sensual and materialist agenda to discover divine standards for beauty, goodness, and truth in the person of Jesus.
Obama’s ‘Bitter’ Comments
Sun 27 Apr 2008 • Responses: 4 • by David Aikman
The rigors of the campaign lead to what may be a landmark moment.
Every presidential campaign cycle has its landmark moments. Television viewers watching the debate in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy were shocked by how unattractive Nixon’s five-o’clock shadow appeared. He lost the debate on television, even though those who heard the debate on the radio thought Nixon had scored more points. Then there was the moment when Ronald Reagan seized the microphone during a 1980 Republican primary debate in New Hampshire and announced that he had “paid” for the microphone and was going to hold onto it. And who can forget Michael Dukakis, George Bush’s opponent in the 1988 election, trying, by driving a tank on camera, to look manly and in-charge and to demonstrate he was commander-in-chief material? Unfortunately, he simply looked absurd.
