Month: April 2015

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Review of ‘Child 44’ by Tom Rob Smith

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 Tom Rob Smith, Child 44 (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008). Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle A serial killer haunts the western Soviet Union in 1953. According to Communist Party doctrine, such a crime cannot exist in a socialist country, where the State has eliminated inequality and poverty and hence the crimes that arise from them. To assert that a serial killer exists—let alone to track him down and seek his punishment—is thus a counterrevolutionary act, a crime that the State takes seriously and punishes severely. Leo Stepanovich Demidov is a decorated hero of the Great Patriotic War and a … Continue reading Review of ‘Child 44’ by Tom Rob Smith

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George F. Will on the Comprehensive, Aggressive, and Dangerous Threat to Free Speech in Contemporary America

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George F. Will spoke at the Inaugural Disinvitation Dinner of the William F. Buckley Program at Yale University. His thesis? “Free speech has never been, in the history of our republic, more comprehensively, aggressively, and dangerously threatened than it is now.” Take a look! Continue reading George F. Will on the Comprehensive, Aggressive, and Dangerous Threat to Free Speech in Contemporary America

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Review of ‘Agent 6’ by Tom Rob Smith

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 Tom Rob Smith, Agent 6 (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2012). Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle Agent 6 is the third book in Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 Trilogy. It follows ex-KGB officer Leo Demidov over three decades and across three continents as he seeks to unravel a conspiracy and avenge the murder of a loved one. Usually, when I read a series that features a central character, I try to read the books in order. I didn’t do that with Agent 6 because it arrived before the other two, and I wanted to crack it open immediately. I’m not sure … Continue reading Review of ‘Agent 6’ by Tom Rob Smith

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Review of ‘How Dante Can Save Your Life’ by Rod Dreher

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 Rod Dreher, How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History’s Greatest Poem (New York: Regan Arts, 2015). Hardcover | Kindle When his sister Ruthie died, Rod Dreher found himself drawn back to his hometown of Starhill, Lousiana. He appreciated Ruthie’s “little way”—her life of close-knit family, down-home neighbors, and ordinary kindness that, though not garnering headlines, was nevertheless rich in love. While happily married with children, Dreher felt that Ruthie’s “little way” supplied was lacking in his and his family’s urban existence; so, they moved to Starhill. The problem was that Dreher had left Starhill for a … Continue reading Review of ‘How Dante Can Save Your Life’ by Rod Dreher

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Justice Scalia’s Worst Opinion

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Today is the 25th anniversary of Justice Anton Scalia’s opinion in Employment Division v. Smith, which Michael Stokes Paulsen describes as Justice Scalia’s Worst Opinion: Smith is not by a long shot the worst Supreme Court decision of all time, or even of the past twenty-five years. As a matter of the human harm it inflicts, there are far more egregious cases.Planned Parenthood v. CaseyandRoe v. Wade, the Court’s abortion decisions,top the listin the modern era. Nor isSmith the most indefensible of opinions in terms of the Court’s legal analysis.Roe,Casey,Lawrence v. Texas, andWindsor v. United States, each adopting and extending some form of “substantive due process,” are worse thanSmithon this score.Smithis … Continue reading Justice Scalia’s Worst Opinion

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The Best Is Yet to Come: Why Credentialed Women Ministers Matter to the Assemblies of God

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From Enrichment Journal: That’s a critical point for young women who are very sincere and see this servant model of leadership in Christ and are not comfortable with a rights issue. This has nothing to do with rights for men or women in ministry. That’s not the rationale for following Jesus in leadership in ministry. Don’t we cripple ourselves in the Kingdom by not empowering both men and women to use their God-given gifts? Wood: I’ll tell you a sad story. Just a few months ago, a very competent, young, ordained, seminary-trained, female graduate interviewed for a pastoral position of a church … Continue reading The Best Is Yet to Come: Why Credentialed Women Ministers Matter to the Assemblies of God

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Calling Out the High-Tech Hypocrites

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From Calling Out the High-Tech Hypocrites: As a country, it is time to understand that the tech oligarchs are not much different from, and no better than, previous business elites. Like oil companies under the Bushes, they relish their ties to the powerful, as evidenced by Google’s weekly confabs with Obama administration officials. No surprise that a host of former top  Obama aides—including former campaign manager David Plouffe (Uber) and White House press secretary Jay Carney (Amazon)—have signed up to work for tech giants. “None of this is to say that the tech elites need to be broken up like Standard … Continue reading Calling Out the High-Tech Hypocrites

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“Seven Stanzas at Easter” by John Updike

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   Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall.   It was not as the flowers, each soft Spring recurrent; it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the eleven apostles; it was as His Flesh: ours.   The same hinged thumbs and toes, the same valved heart that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then regathered out of enduring Might new strength to enclose.   Let us not mock God … Continue reading “Seven Stanzas at Easter” by John Updike