Latest Posts

Motherhood Is More Than a Job

I have plenty of hesitations about heeding various calls to “work-life balance,” mostly because they tend to dismiss or downplay the reality that “work” is often a lot less work than “life.” Continue Reading...

Why is the State of the Union Always ‘Strong’?

I have a can’t miss prediction: tonight, when President Obama gives his seventh State of the Union address, he will describe the state of the union as “strong.” (I’ve made this prediction on this blog the past two years, so I’m hoping for a trifecta of prescience tonight.) Continue Reading...

Life in Exile: Being in the World but Not of It

Given the many warnings about the “crisis of Christianity,” the inevitable rise of secularization, and the decline of our public witness (etc.), it may not be all that surprising that the most popular verse of 2014 focuses on the key tension the underlies it all. Continue Reading...

Supreme Court Defends Freedom in Landmark Religious Liberty Case

Can prison bureaucrats arbitrarily ban peaceful religious practices? Whether they should, they certainly have done so. As The Becket Fund points out, many prisons have barred Jewish inmates from wearing yarmulkes, denied Catholics access to the sacraments of communion and confession, and shut down Evangelical Bible studies. Continue Reading...

‘Dual-Status’ Youths: Broken Kids, Broken System

“Status.” Webster’s defines it as “high position or rank in society.” Yet for many young people, this could not be further from the truth. In the language of social workers and court systems, “dual-status” youths are young people who are involved in the juvenile justice system and child welfare system. Continue Reading...

MLK on Law and Morality

Earlier this year, UCLA made available for the first time the audio of a speech from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. given just over a month after the march from Selma to Montgomery. Continue Reading...

Great Religious Films On Netflix

The film industry quite often gets religion wrong. Either the industry completely misunderstands faith (think Noah and the recent Exodus), or the movies are so saccharine that theaters ought to offer diabetes testing for movie-goers on the way out of the theater (Left Behind and anything else Kirk Cameron has been involved with). Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg on ‘Perverted Religion’ and Free Expression

Horrific acts of violence and the dangers of free expression have been on everyone’s minds lately. After the attack on Charlie Hebdo, the ongoing terrorism by Boko Haram, and countless other attacks and atrocities, many commentators are discussing violence in the name of Islam and limits on free expression. Continue Reading...