There is a new theme emerging in the media: an explicit attempt to normalize abortion to a degree we haven’t seen before. Pro-choice advocates were once content to refer to abortion as an unfortunate necessity, but in the face of pro-life gains in legal and cultural fronts, pro-choicers are going for broke on a new […]
By now there’s a good chance you’ve heard of the disturbing study from Princeton economists showing that middle-aged white Americans are the only demographic showing increasing death rates. Only the 45-54 age segment, and only in the United States. Worse yet, the rise in deaths is due to suicide and substance abuse. One of the […]
More scientific progress? In the wake of news videos about slicing up and testing the remains of aborted babies, leave it to leading scientific researchers to continue to push the envelope. The Hinxton group (a group of stem cell researchers, policy wonks, and bioethicists) is calling for reopening the debate over altering the DNA of […]
For generations it’s been easy to live as a Christian in America. We have lived in a culture that largely assumed and supported Christianity or at least Christian moral principles. Even the Deists among our Founding Fathers operated within the structural framework and assumptions that undergird Christianity. Over the past few decades, we have seen […]
Much has been written since the breaking story on Planned Parenthood’s selling of fetal tissue from abortions. Not surprisingly, mainstream media outlets were slow to pick up the story, and many of them largely parroted the Planned Parenthood defense when writing their stories. The video caused quite the stir on social media, amassing countless shares […]
It’s a Hallmark holiday, but Father’s Day can be a chance to reflect a bit on our children and their future. As a father of one son (and soon to be two), I am a member of a shrinking subset in modern America. Increasingly, many people like me aren’t getting married, some aren’t having children […]
Young students obsessed with “triggers” and safety need to take time for some serious self-reflection, writes Peggy Noonan in a witty and slightly-acerbic Wall Street Journal column. Noonan breaks down this call for caution, sensitivity, comfort, and safety in America’s college classrooms. She tells young people they are requiring too much of others and that […]
In the midst of the tumult in Wisconsin during Governor Scott Walker’s tenure, there have been ongoing “John Doe” investigations that were highlighted in the National Review last week that provoke big bipartisan questions about our nation’s police. What exactly do we want our modern police to look like? These investigations were prompted by a […]
Home is where… no one is. That seems to be the modern trend. City dwellers lead hectic lives, our suburbs are “bedroom communities”, and the talent of the next generation is quickly fleeing small rural towns. Our homes are empty for far too many hours of the day, and this trend has been steadily reshaping […]
The Dutch are killing themselves more than ever, but they feel OK about it. In the latest Newsweek cover story, Winston Ross pens a fairly balanced report on the current facts and rhetoric on euthanasia, both in the Netherlands and the rest of the world. The facts reported in the piece are startling: In 2013, […]
President Obama’s State of the Union address was predictable for a President nearing the end of his second term. It was filled with lots of partisan legislative ideas that will never see fruition in a Republican Congress. It hearkened back to his original campaign ideas of bringing Washington together, which comes off as amusing when you […]
New Year’s Resolutions tend towards the personal: lose weight, take up a hobby, spend more time with the family, get up earlier, read great books, etc. But this new year I beg people to take some time to learn more about bioethics. The stakes are high. Our definitions of life, death, and human dignity are […]
What could be more American than hard work? We are a country of people who believe in meritocracy, in striving to achieve The American Dream. Hard work traces back to our roots – much of it comes from the felt moral heritage of the Protestant Work Ethic. Yet, sadly, today’s American “hard work” is a hollow echo of […]
Christianity Today’s online magazine Parse recently posited that the rise of the automobile laid the groundwork for the modern megachurch. It’s a recommended read that gets to the crux of a problem in modern Christianity – a problem that cars only amplified: our self-centeredness. There are, of course, plenty of God-fearing Christians attending megachurches, but […]
Maclean’s recently featured a compelling summary of our rapidly-deteriorating communities titled “The End of Neighbours.” The expertly-written piece by Brian Bethune is one of the better articles you’ll read this year, and it gets at a key tragedy that is particularly convicting for a Christian conservative: We have forsaken our neighbors. For decades, Americans and Canadians have been […]
The idea of home, of a sense of place, is a vital thread in conservative thought. It’s crucial to the conservative emphasis on community, family, and local institutions. Yet amid the incessant discussions on this theme, it’s easy to forget how such a basic good as a literal home is unobtainable for so many homeless […]
There have been countless recent articles analyzing the millennial generation and its distinctive characteristics, but too many are ignoring an upcoming conflict that could define the generation: the aging baby boomers are going to be a big problem for millennials and their parents in the coming decades. In the U.S., the baby boomers are nearing […]
American education is in trouble—that much seems to be a given. Our public schools and colleges are getting poor results, our young people are drowning in debt, new graduates can’t find jobs, and our overall rankings in the world are pretty dismal. We are greatly in need of a transformation, but we need to think […]
Do you think government today can’t get anything done? Check out James Fallows’s piece in The Atlantic this month. He writes a great article on a pair of Mayors who are doing big things in their cities. It’s exciting: efficient, local, credible political action – actual change you can believe in! Forget placing your hope […]
Since early 2009, the Tea Party as a movement has carved out a substantial place in electoral politics and the general political conversation. Yet for a movement that has garnered so much attention and notoriety, its actual effects have been a bit underwhelming. Tea Party Republicans in the House and Senate worked furiously first to […]
The fiftieth anniversary of The War on Poverty has reignited a flurry of discussion over what to do about the poor in America and around the world. This coincides with some interesting recent statistics on an increasing gulf between what the poor and rich are earning each year. Unfortunately, these disparities are nearly always approached from the […]
