Earlier this month, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) dropped a bombshell: 11.9 million confidential documents revealing tens of trillions of dollars in shady financial dealings by over 400 individuals, including 35 world leaders and...
Brad Littlejohn
Why Protestants Convert, Pt II: The Psychology of Conversion
Why do Protestants convert to Roman Catholicism? Part 2 of a 5 part series, republished for Reformation Day 2021.
The Tyranny of “They Say”
“‘They say,’ is the monarch of this country, in a social sense. No one asks ‘who says it,’ so long as it is believed that ‘they say it.’ Designing men endeavor to persuade the publick, that already ‘they say,’ what these designing men wish to be said, and the publick is only too much disposed blindly to join in the cry of ‘they say.’” (233)
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and the Paradox of Politics
A couple of weeks ago, President Biden announced that he was at last going to put the massive and seemingly unlimited powers of the federal bureaucracy to work in a direct assault on vaccine hesitancy, essentially mandating that all workers at companies of over 100...
What I’ve Been Writing
Over the past eighteen months, I have been blessed to be free to pursue the vocation of a writer as very few are ever so blessed. However, since I've been writing in so many different fora, several folks have complained that it is hard to keep track of it all. As I'm...
Giving Voice to the Voiceless Creation
Last week, I was honored by the opportunity to address the students, parents, and faculty of Greyfriars Classical School in Matthews, NC for the Convocation to mark the start of their academic year. I thought I'd use this blog to share the text of my talk, which...
Imagining a People: An Essay on the Possibility of Political Representation
The second installment of an essay reflecting on political theology through the lens of Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy.
The Return of the Vigilante: An Essay on the Possibility of Political Judgment
The first of two essays reflecting on judgment and justice in conversation with Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”.
The Ethics of Masking in an Unending Pandemic
After a brief summer of freedom, the United States is reeling under a fresh assault of coronavirus, the India-bred Delta variant having proved more than infectious enough to overtop our half-built barriers of herd immunity. In some ways, this latest wave is the most...
“The Most Biblicist National Culture in the World”
A few weeks ago, I wrote a review of Sam Goldman's very stimulating new book, After Nationalism. In the book, Goldman narrates three different conceptions of American national identity: the Covenant (c. 1630-1830), rooted in New England Protestant identity; the...