Where Christianity intersects with politics, culture, and entertainment.
America is "not a Christian nation," said Barack Obama, speaking to Muslims abroad in his first term. The consequence of his lowest-common-denominator pluralism is that those with the least belief get the greatest say over public life. Under this culture, the Christmas season grows more and more insipid, as evident in the "holiday card" Obama…
Full Article
The Washington Post recently gave prominent coverage to a bizarre religion story, so wildly improbable as to raise serious doubts about the paper's critical faculties. The piece also contributes to a potent modern mythology. The story reported that "Colombian Evangelical Christians Convert To Judaism, Embracing Hidden Past." It tells of a village with a strong…
Full Article
As further evidence of the American ignorance of cultural history, I give you the reaction to the new movie Rise of the Guardians. It's a pretty good cartoon that has more going on under the hood than it needed to capture its target audience. The basic plot is simple. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Tooth…
Full Article
During one of the NFL games I watched last weekend, a play ended with a monster and entirely legal hit. Both players lay stunned on the turf until helped to the sidelines. Not so many years ago, that would have been one highlight of the game for me, with little worry that the players got…
Full Article
I was not surprised to find Paul Thomas Anderson's new film The Master a stunning artistic achievement, and certainly one of the year's very best films. I don't find it easy to be objective on this topic, as I place Anderson (together with the Coens and John Sayles) among the greatest of American film-makers. But…
Full Article
Cardinal Timothy Dolan's geniality makes him ill-suited to head up an embattled church in America — a problem that the unfolding fiasco of the Al Smith dinner illustrates. The New York prelate's invitation to the Church's most powerful foe, President Barack Obama, has outraged Catholics across the country, who want to know from Dolan: Why…
Full Article
Here is one lesson from Friday's Colorado theater massacre: superheroes are fantasy but supervillains are not. Less flippantly: we live in a era where it is infinitely easier to commit transcendent evil than to perform remarkable good. This is only the latest in a series of episodes that demonstrate the malign power unique to our…
Full Article
In my first column for this series on Frank Marshall Davis, Obama's mentor, I noted Davis's upbringing and faith — and his break early on from Christianity. Significantly, among the rancid fruits of this separation was communism. Therein were seeds of Davis's eventual turn to Marxism-Leninism, a totalitarian ideology and the god that failed. In…
Full Article
Historians often have problems dealing with popular culture. On the one hand, they know that novels, music albums, and even comics influence a vast audience, but there is always some embarrassment about treating them seriously in sober political accounts. In consequence, we tend to miss critical parts of major stories. Here's a case in point.…
Full Article
company.