Category Archives: history

Delirium

As much as I may grumble about the Economist’s snooty and irritating Davos/Brussels liberalism, it still remains an invaluable resource, not least its Christmas issue. This year’s included a haunting, terrifically written piece on the 19th Century war that nearly … Continue reading

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A Miserable Chapter

Via Der Spiegel International: Until into the 1990s, doctors and nuns in Spain allegedly stole newborn babies and sold them to couples hoping to adopt. The vast scope of this lucrative baby-snatching network is only now coming to light as … Continue reading

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In the Beginning

Much as I am not a fan of the public nuisance better known as Karen Armstrong, the opening two paragraphs of a review she has written for the FT today caught my eye: Over the course of his long, distinguished … Continue reading

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“Religious Freedom”

From The New York Times: Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan on Friday helped kick off a national campaign opposing President Obama’s health care mandates and other government policies that Roman Catholic leaders say threaten their religious freedom… The bishops timed the … Continue reading

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“A European Church”

Iain Martin, writing in the Daily Telegraph: The Church of England’s Archbishops’ Council, headed by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, has made a submission on Europe to the Foreign Affairs … Continue reading

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Embrace doubt, reject certitude, and move past moral smugness

Noah Millman has a post up at The American Conservative, What Has Christianity To Do With Human Rights? He is responding to a conversation at the heart of which is Ross Douthat, who is making singular claims for the grounding … Continue reading

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Conserving a non-existent past, revering radicalism’s forgotten

Recently I watched this Christian duet’s paean’s ode to Rick Santorum and was struck by the references to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I am aware that Christian conservatives have a “Constitutionalist” focus, and often suggest that the … Continue reading

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Newt Gingrich, Historian

Via the Economist: Believers in the idea that America was established as a Christian state scored a hit last year when the Texas school board, a politicised body in which evangelicals control crucial votes, ordered up textbooks laying out this … Continue reading

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The Rise of Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox (Again)

Gershom Gorenberg writes in Slate: Rather than being a diorama of traditional Jewish life in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust, as many Israelis and visitors believe, Israel’s present-day version of ultra-Orthodoxy is a creation of the Jewish state. Policies with … Continue reading

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If You Don’t Martyr Me, I’ll Kill Ya

At The Corner, our National Review group blog, David French offers a cute thought experiment:  What if present-day Christianity were as addled with terrorist impulses as present-day Islam? It isn’t, of course, but terrorism is not completely alien to Christianity.  … Continue reading

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