William F. Buckley says “One can’t doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.” Now, I appreciate the willingness of the elder statesmen of conservatism – Buckley, George Will, etc. – to voice their skepticism on the Bush administration’s Iraq policy rather than just toeing the party line. But where were these guys before…

Ever find yourself wondering “Just what is the difference between thrash metal and speed metal?” Turns out it’s mainly in the punk-influenced sound of the former. Good to know.

Camassia on heaven. This paragraph’s a gem: For another thing, saying, “You’ll be rewarded for being good by going to heaven after you die,” is only a recipe for complacency if you subscribe to a certain idea of “being good.” Certainly the Mennonite concept of what it means to follow Jesus in this life is…

Via the “Crunchy Con” blog I see that idiosyncratic paleo/libertarian/localist Bill Kauffman has a new book coming out in May: Look Homeward, AmericaIn Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists (excerpt here). Here’s the publisher’s description: In Look Homeward, America, Bill Kauffman introduces us to the reactionary radicals, front-porch anarchists, and traditionalist rebels who give…

I just started reading German “evangelical” (i.e. Lutheran) theologian Oswald Bayer’s little book Living by Faith: Justification and Sanctification, published in the Lutheran Quarterly Series. In the first chapter Bayer makes a very interesting move by using “justification” as a kind of all-encompassing principle for understanding personal and social life, and even a kind of…

From Oremus: Polycarp [A.D. 69-155] was Bishop of Smyrna (today known as Izmir), a city on the west coast of Turkey. The letters to the “seven churches in Asia” at the beginning of the book of Revelation include a letter to the church in Smyrna, identifying it as a church undergoing persecution. Polycarp is said…

In his essay “The Presence of Mary in the Mystery of the Church” (found in the book Mary: Mother of God, edited by Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson), Lutheran theologian David Yeago argues for a re-appropriation by Protestants of Mary’s role as both paradigm or prototype in the life of faith and discipleship and as…

Edward Schroeder of the Crossings Community reviews the book Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus by Stephen Patterson. Patterson’s argument seems to be the familiar one that the important thing about Jesus was not his death and resurrection, but his vision of a just society that challenged the hegemony of the…

I assume, and hope, that you have better things to do, dear readers, than following internal ideological debates on the political Right, so you may not be familiar with Rod Dreher’s 2002 National Review article on “Granola Conservatives.” In Mr. Dreher’s telling, a granola conservative – or “crunchy con” – is someone who is politically…

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