A prophetic novel?

In the third book of his science fiction trilogy, C.S, Lewis converted his thesis from The Abolition of Man into a novel:

In 1945, C.S. Lewis published a strange, unsettling novel called That Hideous Strength. It was marketed as fiction, but it read like prophecy. ....

That Hideous Strength isn’t really about technology. In truth, it is about the objects of our obedience. It’s about what happens when humanity stops kneeling before God and starts bowing to its own tools. Lewis understood something many clever people miss: rejecting divine truth doesn’t make people more rational. If anything, it leaves them exposed, more vulnerable, more easily led.

The novel centers on an institution called the N.I.C.E., which stands for the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments. It presents itself as scientific, humane, and forward-looking. It promises efficiency. Improvement. A better future, scrubbed clean of superstition and sentiment.

Behind the glass walls and polite language, however, darker intentions take hold. The organization seeks to “recondition” humanity. To reshape desire. To erase conscience. To replace moral limits with technical control. ....

In That Hideous Strength, the villains aren’t crude tyrants. They are administrators. Experts. Committees. They speak eloquently. They promise safety. They insist they are beyond good and evil because they operate on a higher plane.

Lewis recognized this tone. It is the voice of people who believe themselves absolved by intelligence. People who think cleverness is a moral category. People who confuse capability with permission.

Lewis warned of the abolition of man, not as a sudden catastrophe, but as a slow diminishment. Not destruction by force, but erosion by pride. When basic decency is discarded, those who hold authority no longer judge human behavior; they redefine what it means to be human — reshaping instincts, limits, and desires according to their own designs. .... (more)

John Mac Ghlionn, "How C. S. Lewis’s Prophetic Warning Has Come True 80 Years Later," Religion Unplugged, Feb 25, 2026.

I read it as a kid

The most recent Five Books interview is about the "best books" about the sinking of the Titanic. One of the selections is A Night to Remember (1955). I read it a long time ago. I really disliked the relatively recent film, Titanic, partly because I knew a lot about what actually happened. I tend to get annoyed when historical events are unnecessarily fictionalized. On the book:

It’s hard to imagine anybody producing a more thrilling account of the Titanic than Walter Lord’s book from 1955. The Titanic has never really gone away, but between 1912-13 and 1955 there wasn’t a lot of sustained interest. Then Walter Lord came along and published A Night to Remember. It was a bestseller that has never gone out of print.

Lord’s book is a moment-by-moment telling of the events of the night of April 14 and the morning of April 15. What’s most skillful about it is the way that it moves around in space as it recreates these moments in time. From the outset, you get phrases like ‘meanwhile’ or ‘on the boat deck.’ He moves you around the ship, creating a sense of simultaneity, even as he’s conveying a sense of the vastness of the Titanic and all of these different experiences happening at the same time, from calm to panic. He also plays around with the pacing so that it’ll slow down to have Thomas Andrews, the ship’s designer, reflect on his career, or Isidor and Ida Straus reflecting on their marriage. And then the pace speeds up as the danger becomes clearer, the lifeboats are being loaded and launched, and the water is rising. It becomes a complete page turner by the time the ship is going down.

It’s also held up incredibly well in terms of accuracy. That’s in part because of the advantages he had writing this book in 1955 as opposed to later, because he could interview or correspond with 60-plus survivors. He was a meticulous researcher. He used newspapers, the British and American inquiries, the published survivors’ accounts, as well as his interviews and correspondence with survivors. He was careful about not reporting some of the more dubious stories that were told about the disaster at the time. .... (more)

Steven Biel, "The best books on The Titanic," Five Books, Feb. 22, 2026.

The last enemy

Former Senator Ben Sasse is dying of cancer. Today at Mere Orthodoxy, I found this quotation from an interview. Ben Sasse:

...[A] lot is broken in this world. The existence of death is surely not the way it's supposed to be. So Jesus weeping, what a gift. The story is amazing. The whole, the whole Lazarus story and his sister's weirdly narcissistic behavior, that's us, right? Like we're dying in the story too. We're many of the characters, but we're definitely that egotistical, self-absorbed, "Jesus, why didn't you do it the way I want you to do it?"

But to our point about short attention spans, first, let's just go back and read that story and a dozen adjacent stories. The Bible is so rich and we spend so little time reading it together. Jesus weeps there, and he knows that he's gonna raise Lazarus five minutes later. So it's an amazing story because he's acknowledging that death is terrible, and yet death doesn't win. The Christian phrase in Christian literature for years has been to call death "the last enemy."

Death is a wicked thief, it's an enemy, but it's pretty great that it's the last enemy. All the stuff that I regret for having been an inadequate husband and son and father and friend and worker, truth teller, all the stuff that I've been weak on, I'm gonna be freed from all of that. Death is the last enemy. (more)

Jake Meador, "The Bright Sadness of Ben Sasse," Mere Orthodoxy, Feb. 19, 2026.

"Come, ye sinners..."

A blogger I once followed thought this a good hymn for Ash Wednesday,  "Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy" (Joseph Hart, 1759):

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore; Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love and power. Refrain	View Him prostrate in the garden; On the ground your Maker lies. On the bloody tree behold Him; Sinner, will this not suffice? Refrain
I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms; In the arms of my dear Savior, O there are ten thousand charms.	Lo! th’incarnate God ascended, Pleads the merit of His blood: Venture on Him, venture wholly, Let no other trust intrude. Refrain
Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome, God’s free bounty glorify; True belief and true repentance, Every grace that brings you nigh. Refrain	Let not conscience make you linger, Not of fitness fondly dream; All the fitness He requireth Is to feel your need of Him. Refrain
Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Lost and ruined by the fall; If you tarry till you’re better, You will never come at all. Refrain

A variation on the hymn by the Missouri All State Choir:

"Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies"

Robert Duvall has died.  He was a great actor and was in several of my favorite films. Some years ago, at the beginning of Lent, John Nolte suggested several films appropriate to the season. One he recommended:

Tender Mercies(1983) - Robert Duvall plays Mac Sledge, an alcoholic has-been country and western star who wakes up hungover in a rundown motel run by a widow and her young son. The great Horton Foote’s exquisite, Oscar-winning script understands faith like few others. Sledge doesn’t come back to life through rediscovering music; he rediscovers music after coming back to life. And what brings him to life is the love of a kind and simple woman, her young son, a difficult reconciliation with the past, and in the film’s most touching scene, a gentle dunk in baptismal waters.

Tender Mercies seems to be about a very troubled and messed-up life. It is really about God's grace. I saw the film in a theater on its first run, and I've watched it on videotape and DVD many times since. It isn't a "message" film. It isn't propaganda for the faith. It simply shows how, even when we focus on the drama in our lives—on the terrible and stressful things—we are still surrounded by blessings.

Tolerance for country music is necessary if the film is to be enjoyed. If you haven't seen it, it is worth at least renting (it is available on Blu-ray and, last time I checked, can be watched on Prime). If you haven't seen it for a while, this is a good time to revisit.

Duvall was given "Best Actor" and Horton Foote "Best Original Screenplay" for the film—back when that still meant something. Foote was also responsible for the screen adaptation of Duvall's first film, To Kill a Mockingbird (for which Foote also received an Academy Award). Duvall famously objected to delivering lines that no real person would utter. Foote didn't write any dialogue like that.

“Textualism” and “originalism”

Ten years after his death, why Scalia's influence remains strong, and likely will continue:

Scalia was not just a judge but a philosopher: he sought to fundamentally change how we think about the role of a judge in a democratic nation. His view was very simple: if the law is to change, it should be changed by the people who wrote the law, not by nine unelected judges sitting on the Supreme Court. If your favorite right is not in the Constitution, amend it. If your favorite provision is not in the U.S. Code, ask Congress to add it. If you can’t convince your fellow citizens that the law should change, why should you be able to get your way through judicial fiat instead?

He called this view “textualism” for statutes and “originalism” for constitutional provisions, but the two terms are synonymous: judges should follow the original understanding of a text until the text is changed. The idea is so compelling it is hard to believe it was ever controversial. But it was – until Scalia joined the Supreme Court in 1986.

Since then, textualism and originalism have taken over the legal profession. ....

The trends are even bipartisan: one could argue that the best textualist on the Supreme Court today is Elena Kagan. As she admitted not too long ago, thanks to Justice Scalia, “[w]e’re all textualists now.” ....

It occurs to me that Scalia's approach to legal interpretation is a pretty good description of what biblical interpretation ought to be.

Brian Fitzpatrick, "Justice Scalia ten years later," SCOTUSBlog, Feb. 13, 2026.

Mobocratic rule

On the anniversary of his birth:

 

Lincoln, age 28, in 1844: from the Lyceum Address delivered in Springfield:

.... If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth, and an insult to our intelligence, to deny. Accounts of outrages committed by mobs, form the every-day news of the times. They have pervaded the country, from New England to Louisiana....

...[B]y instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained.— Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much, as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocractic spirit, which all must admit, is now abroad in the land, the strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed—I mean the attachment of the People. Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last. By such things, the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it; and thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those few too weak, to make their friendship effectual. At such a time and under such circumstances, men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric, which for the last half century, has been the fondest hope, of the lovers of freedom, throughout the world. .... (more)

Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum Address

"Yet I will rejoice"

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines,
The produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like the deer’s.
He makes me tread on high places. 

Habakkuk 3:17-19 [ESV]

The final verse of Cowper's hymn is based on that passage from Habakkuk. It is a favorite hymn of mine, although several others of Cowper's are, too.

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises with healing in His wings:
When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain.

In holy contemplation, we sweetly then pursue
The theme of God’s salvation, and find it ever new.
Set free from present sorrow, we cheerfully can say,
'E'en let th' unknown tomorrow bring with it what it may.

It can bring with it nothing, but He will bear us through.
Who gives the lilies clothing will clothe His people, too;
Beneath the spreading heavens, no creature but is fed;
And He Who feeds the ravens will give His children bread.

Though vine, nor fig tree, neither, their wonted fruit should bear,
Tho' all the field should wither, nor flocks, nor herds, be there,
Yet God, the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice
For while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice.
(William Cowper, c. 1779)

Poets' Corner - William Cowper: Olney Hymns

O blessed they

From Augustine, "Exposition on Psalm 148":

The subject of our meditation in this present life should be the praises of God; for the everlasting exaltation of our life hereafter will be the praise of God, and none can become fit for the life hereafter, who has not practiced himself for it now. So then now we praise God, but we pray to Him too. Our praise is marked by joy, our prayer by groans....On account of these two seasons, one, that which now is in the temptations and tribulations of this life, the other, that which is to be hereafter in everlasting rest and exultation; we have established also the celebration of two seasons, that before Easter and that after Easter. That which is before Easter signifies tribulation, in which we now are; that which we are now keeping after Easter, signifies the bliss in which we shall hereafter be. ....

Praise ye the Lord from heaven: praise Him in the high places. First he says, from heaven, then from earth; for it is God that is praised, who made heaven and earth. All in heaven is calm and peaceful; there is ever joy, no death, no sickness, no vexation; there the blessed ever praise God; but we are still below: yet, when we think how God is praised there, let us have our heart there, and let us not hear to no purpose, Lift up your hearts. Let us lift up our heart above, that it become not corrupted on earth: for we take pleasure in what the Angels do there. We do it now in hope: hereafter we shall in reality, when we have come there. Praise Him then in the high places. ....

What sort of command, think ye, have things in heaven and the holy angels received? What sort of command has God given them? What, but that they praise Him? Blessed are they whose business is to praise God! They plough not, they sow not, they grind not, they cook not; for these are works of necessity, and there is no necessity there. They steal not, they plunder not, they commit no adultery; for these are works of iniquity, and there is no iniquity there. They break not bread for the hungry, they clothe not the naked, they take not in the stranger, they visit not the sick, they set not at one the contentious, they bury not the dead; for these are works of mercy, and there is no misery, for mercy to be shown to. O blessed they! Think we that we too shall be like this? ....

“Two nations divided by a common language”

I very much enjoyed "Divided by a Common Language," about the differences between American and British English. Bryan A. Garner concluded it thus:

The differences between American and British English are tuned finely enough to carry tone, identity, and local flavor without blocking understanding. An American novelist who writes mom instead of mum summons a whole emotional landscape in three letters; a British narrator who chooses lorry over truck conjures a road running through a very different place. English remains gloriously mongrel, perfectly able to let both sides sound entirely themselves — and still, cheerfully, understand one another.

But then I came across this at the end of a book review in the Daily Telegraph:

This book is an entertaining read, but its thesis is overblown and exaggerated. It is also written in American [emphasis added], a language whose spellings and idioms are exceptionally irritating to British readers. Even if Allen Lane are short of editors, can’t they at least show sufficient respect for their British market to invest in some software that will translate such books into English?

I live in a place called the "Capitol Centre." I don't mind.

A good American

Again, from the current issue of National Review, Charles C.W. Cooke, an immigrant, responds to Vivek Ramaswamy's definition of what it means to be an American. Ramaswamy, himself the child of immigrants, was reacting in turn to some on the Right who advocate for something called "heritage" Americans:

On the eve of America’s 250^th anniversary, Vivek Ramaswamy offered up a definition of what it means to be an American. “Americanness,” he wrote in the New York Times, “isn’t a scalar quality that varies based on your ancestry.” Rather, “you are an American if you believe in the rule of law, in freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, in colorblind meritocracy, in the U.S. Constitution, in the American dream, and if you are a citizen who swears exclusive allegiance to our nation.”

As a strong advocate of the notion that America, in a meaningful sense, represents an idea, I found a lot to like in this explication. Nevertheless, I think that it’s missing a crucial word: “good.” What Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate now running for governor of Ohio, describes is a good American, an ideal American, an American as Americans are imagined in our founding documents. It is true, in my estimation, that to be a good American is to believe in the rule of law, and in freedom of conscience and expression, and in colorblind meritocracy, and in the Constitution, and in the American dream, and to swear exclusive allegiance to our nation. It is not true, however, that the Americans who do none of these things aren’t American. An American who opposes the First Amendment or wishes to implement a caste system or loathes the U.S. Constitution is a bad American, certainly. But he is still an American — with the same rights and status as everyone else. ....

On America’s 150^th birthday, Calvin Coolidge remarked, “About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful.” He submitted that “if all men are created equal, that is final”: “If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.”

Taken seriously, Coolidge’s construction suggests that the United States has no choice but to insist on the continuation of its fundamental ideals — which are not merely some ideals among many but the only ideals suitable to a free country. Naturally, these ideals cannot be maintained by our pivoting to an interest in “heritage Americans.” .... (more)

Charles C.W. Cooke, "To Be, and to Become, an American," National Review, March, 2026.

Read books!

National Review's March edition recognizes the 250^th anniversary of America's Independence with some pretty good essays. From Mary Katharine Ham in "Reading Makes Us Better Citizens":

In a video I stumbled on recently, a man in a hoodie reads to the camera, somewhat haltingly telling the story of Aslan and the Pevensie children. He’s been working his way, one chapter a day, through The Chronicles of Narnia. The text over the video reads, “37 years old, fifth-grade reading level, no one taught me, but I’m not giving up.” ....

The truth is that a lot of Americans, for more than a generation, haven’t been learning very much. They don’t learn because they don’t read. They don’t read because they’re not asked to, and if they are, it’s in small excerpts. If they were asked to read, many couldn’t because trendy pedagogy took precedence over phonics and didn’t begin to lose its hold until 2022, when journalist Emily Hanford revealed that there is a science to reading that research shows works but that schools ignored. ....

Even an elite college like Columbia University, with its great-books curriculum, is cutting the number of required books because students are “overwhelmed by the reading,” a situation recounted by professors to The Atlantic. The share of nine-year-olds who read for fun every day is at the lowest level since the Nation’s Report Card began studying the trend in 1984. And the percentage of adults who read for pleasure daily dropped from 28 percent to 16 percent over 20 years. ....

Despite the research showing that newer methods of teaching reading didn’t work, the education establishment wouldn’t let go of debunked practices. Yet some states, like Mississippi, had figured things out. When the Magnolia State launched a new approach to literacy in 2013, it started on a trajectory that took it from 49th to ninth in the Nation’s Report Card rankings. The poorest state in the country, with large numbers of low-income and minority students, began outperforming everyone, showing gains across all income and achievement levels for half what California spends per student.

The state’s approach was to screen young kids several times per year for literacy, attempting to close the kind of cracks that Oliver James had fallen through 30 years ago. Mississippi added a policy to hold back third-graders who were not proficient. This caused controversy, as many assumed that large numbers of students would be held back. What actually happened is that accountability and a new approach got adults in gear to help students succeed by third grade. Setting higher expectations, not hiding failure with lower ones, worked. The state invested in training to get teachers bought in on new curricula and used tried-and-true phonics instruction in line with the science of reading.

This success has already been replicated in Alabama, Tennessee, and Louisiana, which all rose substantially in NAEP rankings in 2024 as other states continued to fight pandemic losses. ....

At the risk of simplifying complex problems, the answer is books. They’re not just practical, but as the “Mississippi miracle” moniker suggests, downright astounding in their delivery of public good. In the 2019 book The Enchanted Hour, which inspired me to start regular read-alouds with my children, author Meghan Cox Gurdon calls it a “dazzlingly transformative and even countercultural act” in an age of increased technology and decreased connection. “Reading out loud is probably the least expensive and most effective intervention we can make for the good of our families, and for the wider culture.” .... (more)

I was taught before phonics went out of style. I also had a father who read to me, and there were many, many books available. I didn't always read what was assigned, but I always read. I was very fortunate.

Mary Katharine Ham, "Reading Makes Us Better Citizens," National Review, March, 2026.

Helping or hindering worship?

I grew up attending worship in a sanctuary built during the Great Depression. It replaced a building that burned down one Sabbath morning in mid-winter. It was a beautiful building constructed in difficult economic times. Obviously, the congregation thought beauty important. The excerpts below are from "12 Theses on Church Buildings":

• The church is not a building but a people, but the church is a people who must gather. Thus, for a church to exist, it must have a location to gather in. And since meeting outdoors limits the gathering (weather, sound, distractions, etc.), this usually means some kind of building. ....

• The health of a church is not necessarily connected with the quality of its building. A healthy, growing church can meet in a basement, and a dead, apostate church can gather (as many do) in ornate cathedrals. ....

• In the New Testament, churches would sometimes meet in someone’s home (Rom 16:5), and sometimes in larger facilities, like the Hall of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9-10). The church in Jerusalem (prior to the martyrdom of Stephen) was in the thousands and so gathered regularly in the Temple court (Acts 2:41-47).

• As Christianity began to grow, churches began constructing buildings devoted exclusively to their church gatherings. ....

• Evangelicals tend to not think much about a church’s architecture and aesthetic beyond purely functional questions. It may be tempting for evangelicals to roll their eyes at Christians of yesteryear who invested enormous sums of money in making stone cathedrals: Why was this not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? But it is an extreme hermeneutic of suspicion to assume that every beautiful church was constructed through avarice and worldliness. (Disregard the fact that these same evangelicals may not think twice about their church spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on A/V equipment)....

• You will find it easier to contemplate the glory of God standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon than you will in the fluorescently-lit DMV. It isn’t because God is more present at the Grand Canyon, but it is because we are creatures who are easily affected by our surroundings. The ornate and costly designs of the Tabernacle and Temple were not to draw God to the location, like iron-filings to a magnet. They were there to help draw the attention of the worshipper up as he approached the fearful, awesome, beautiful God. The gold, the designs, the sheer size of the structure—all were used as aids in helping the worshipper discern the holiness and beauty of the God he had come to worship. Thus, our surroundings can either aid, or hinder, our worship.

• A church should create a space for corporate worship that emphasizes—rather than detracts from—the central point of worship: God. .... The goal should be that when a guest or congregant walks into the sanctuary they realize that they have entered a place unlike any other space in the hustle and bustle of normal life. They have come somewhere that leads them to reverent silence and contemplation as they prepare to commune with the living God (Eccl 5:1-7). .... (more)

Marc Sims, "12 Theses on Church Buildings," Mere Orthodoxy, Jan 28, 2026.

"We hold these truths..."

From Gordon S. Wood's "The Five Greatest Words in the Declaration":

In the Declaration of Independence, the 250^th anniversary of which we are celebrating this year, the Founders put down five significant words that came to define America’s culture — “all men are created equal.” No phrase could have been more radical, more momentous. Even the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789, with its statement that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights,” does not have the same power and significance. ....

This radical idea, of course, had roots in Christianity that went back centuries, but by the 18^th century, for many of the enlightened, it had taken on a literal and secular significance that remains the foundation of America’s democratic faith. In other words, what separated individuals from one another, what explained the obvious inequalities of society, were the circumstances in which people were raised, the environments they experienced through their senses that shaped their lives. A child’s mind, according to a Quaker schoolmaster in Philadelphia in 1793, was “soft wax, which will take the least stamp you put on it, so let it be your care, who teach, to make the stamp good, that the wax be not hurt.” Education, which had been important only to New England Puritans, suddenly became an American obsession.

And not just the education of elites but of all the people. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 put it best, decreeing that “religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” ....

Once those who considered themselves enlightened realized that they could change people’s minds and character through education, they began to feel morally responsible for the weak and downtrodden. In the minds of society’s leaders, concern and compassion replaced the smugness and indifference of the ancien régime. If the culture — what people thought and believed — was man-made and could be changed, then the status of the lowly and deprived could be reformed and improved. ....

Slavery existed in a multitude of cultures for thousands of years without substantial criticism — until the late 18^th century and the American Revolution. Although many modern historians have called the Revolution’s inability to free all the slaves its greatest failure, they have committed the great sin of anachronism by assuming that everyone in the past must have known that slavery was an evil. These historians, therefore, have not fully appreciated that the Revolution defied a world that for millennia had taken slavery for granted. It was the Revolution that, for the first time in history, made slavery a problem, and it led to the first instance of states’ abolishing the practice. Not only did eight Northern states abolish slavery in the aftermath of the Declaration of Independence, but slaveholders in the Southern states were thrown on the defensive and, for the first time, had to justify an institution that they hitherto had taken for granted. ....

The meaning of these five words in the Declaration of Independence was expanded in the succeeding decades to the point where every white man felt he was equal to every other such American. Once invoked, the idea of equality could not be stopped, and it tore through American culture and society with awesome power. .... (more)

Gordon S. Wood, "The Five Greatest Words in the Declaration," National Review, March, 2026.

Self-esteem

A passing reference in a blog I read almost every day sent me looking for "Psychobabble that shields the seriously selfish," a 1999 essay by Theodore Dalrymple:

When someone says that he lacks self-esteem he says it as if he were denied something that is his of right. Merely by virtue of drawing breath, each person has the right to think well of himself. Are not all men created equal, in some not-quite-specifiable metaphysical sense? And is not man the paragon of animals, the beauty of the world, like unto a god? Should we not all, then, think well of ourselves? ....

Does anyone not know someone who is too full of self-esteem, who is pompous, puffed up, self-important, vainglorious, self-regarding and altogether too pleased with himself? Whose achievements or qualities are minimal, yet who seems walled around by an awareness of his own assumed superiority? And is it not the case that such inflated self-esteem is one of the most unpleasant qualities anyone can have, drawing immediate censure from almost everyone? ....

Many people come to me saying that they need to find themselves, on the assumption that somewhere buried deep within them, like a vein of precious ore in the Witwatersrand, there is a wonderful, exceptional, talented person trying to get out, about whom they will be able to feel good. The doctor is thus a miner in the hard rock of the personality. I sometimes astonish my patients by telling them that it is far more important that they should be able to lose themselves than that they should be able to find themselves. For it is only in losing oneself that one does find oneself. (emphasis added) ....

Anyone who even asks the question of whether he has sufficient self-esteem is, ipso facto, a lost soul. Whatever answer is given, the person is in trouble, in a state of profound error and confusion. It is a sign of our increasing self-obsession, of the narrowing of our emotional, spiritual and intellectual horizons, that a concept such as self-esteem should have assumed such importance and become central to so many kinds of therapy. I recall the words of Lord Bacon (admittedly not a man entirely without ego himself), which are as true now as they were when he wrote them: “It is a poore centre of a Man’s life, Himselfe.”

Theodore Dalrymple, "Psychobabble that shields the seriously selfish," The New Statesman, August 16, 1999.

A ripping good yarn

From a review of Storyteller: The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson:

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) belongs at the head of a select company of writers renowned in their day—Alexandre ­Dumas, Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—who are no longer taken seriously, or for that matter read much, by most adults. However, the pleasures of reading adventure stories are not all guilty ones. The very best of such tales not only entertain but also teach—­reminding grown men and women of fundamental truths they took in when young. ....

Treasure Island portrays an adolescent’s initiation into the depths of manly wickedness—and his boldness in fighting against it. The sinister forces that generally flee the daylight penetrate the peaceable life of young Jim Hawkins. A succession of seafaring ruffians, each more rotten than the previous—Billy Bones, Black Dog, Blind Pew—arrive at his father’s inn, and bring with them terror and bloodshed, as they pursue the notorious pirate Captain Flint’s buried treasure. Pelf, loot, plunder: That is what pirates live and die for. But this fascination with riches infects the good men whom Jim knows, and with Flint’s treasure map in their possession a select group of them heads out to sea in quest of a fortune.

They are all innocents, with a lot to learn about the nature of evil. Squire Trelawney, the ringleader, unwittingly hires a crew of pirates who had sailed with Flint, among them Long John Silver, the peg-legged archvillain who has become the favorite buccaneer of popular legend. At first, they strike the Squire as virtuous men; but appearances can be fatefully deceiving, as Jim learns more quickly than his adult companions. Having climbed into a barrel on deck to get one of the few apples remaining there, Jim overhears Silver feverishly tell his fellow cutthroats of his plan to murder the good men—he imagines the most exquisite mutilations for the Squire—and take all the treasure for themselves. As Jim tells the story, “I would not have shown myself for all the world, but lay there, trembling and listening, in the ­extreme of fear and curiosity, for from these dozen words I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended upon me alone.”

One lesson after another in maintaining his composure will follow. The pirates and the honest men will go to war, and several will be killed. Perhaps the biggest excitement comes when Jim fights to the death with the malignant Israel Hands. In a tour de force of practical criticism, Damrosch captures perfectly, sentence by sentence, the intricate and unrelenting narrative movement that renders the violent action, right down to the killing blow. ....

And for all that, it is a ripping good yarn, like Stevenson’s other most remarkable works of fiction. Each of these is singular in plot, but all are similar in their fundamental teaching: that righteous men must resist wrongdoers with all the courage they have, especially when the vicious have superior strength.

In Kidnapped (1886), seventeen-­year-old David Balfour, another slow learner, narrowly escapes a murderous pitfall contrived by his malicious, miserly uncle Ebenezer—yet still trusts the old reprobate enough to be suckered aboard a ship manned by evildoers, whom Ebenezer has paid to transport him into indentured servitude in the Carolinas. David, too, will have to fight for his life, and is fortunate to have at his side an expert ­swordsman who will become his fast friend. .... (more)

Algis Valiunas, "Stevenson’s Treasure," First Things, Jan 21, 2026.

Josephus and Jesus

I've been reading history for a very long time. I love this sort of thing. On an ancient Jewish historian and what he may have written about Jesus:

.... Josephus is our most important historical source for the Roman East—Syria, Galilee, and Judea—offering priceless insights into politics, warfare, religion, and daily life we’d otherwise never know.

I’ve taught about Josephus’s life and works for more than 20 years—first in secular settings like Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, and now at Wheaton College. But Josephus and Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ by T.C. Schmidt, associate professor of religious studies at Fairfield University, has forced me to rewrite my lectures—and it might just have changed my mind. It seems that a controversial passage about Jesus’s resurrection might be original after all.

Of everything Josephus wrote, a single paragraph has been analyzed and debated more than all the rest. Those 90 words are even given their own name in scholarship: the Testimonium Flavianum—the testimony of Flavius Josephus about Jesus.

It appears in Book 18 of Jewish Antiquities. Here’s the standard translation from the Loeb Classical Library, with brackets around the words I’ve described for decades as “dodgy.” (Not exactly a technical term, but I always thought it apt.)

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, [if indeed one ought to call him a man]. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. [He was the Messiah.] When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. [For he appeared to them alive again on the third day, the divine prophets having foretold these and countless other marvellous things about him.] And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

Since a famous 1987 article by Géza Vermes (professor of Jewish studies at Oxford University), the scholarly consensus about this paragraph has been that Josephus himself wrote a brief, neutral—or perhaps negative—remark about Jesus, which was later “improved” by a Christian scribe copying out Josephus’s works in the fourth, fifth, or sixth century. ....

Schmidt does a terrific job in the early chapters of his book chasing down all the manuscripts that contain the Testimonium Flavianum. Josephus wrote in Greek, but his work—at least parts of it—was quickly translated into Latin, as well as Syriac, Armenian, and Arabic. Unlike most classical and New Testament scholars, Schmidt seems comfortable swimming in all these linguistic oceans.

The upshot of his analysis is that we may have to rethink a key line. ....

I’ve spent my career trying to ensure my teaching about the historical Jesus stays within the bounds of mainstream (secular) scholarship, and Schmidt’s book is a major, serious challenge to the consensus on the Testimonium Flavianum. It won’t completely convince everyone, but if I’m any indication, it could partly convince many. I might owe my former students an apology. (more, summarizing the argument made in the book)

This appears at the end of the review: "Editors’ note: A generous donor has made Josephus and Jesus freely available in PDF format."

John Dickson, "I Might Owe My Students an Apology About Josephus," TGC, Jan. 19, 2026.

Transported

I can remember being so engrossed in a book that I was unaware of my surroundings or of the passage of time. A book can transport you somewhere else entirely.

 

Blessed are the dead...

When my father died, I asked the pastor to use scriptures that remind us of the hope we have. They are scriptures used for the funeral of a believer in the Book of Common Prayer.

I AM the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.

I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?

One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require; even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his temple.

Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours.

Finally and ultimately

Re-posted.

Modern Heresies is a book I found in the Milton College Library. I was an undergraduate, and my work-study job was shelving books, ensuring that they were in the proper Dewey order. I tended to browse a lot, and that's how I came across this one. I soon ordered a copy for myself. It was for me an early introduction to the idea of heresy. (If reprinted, it should be re-titled Perennial Heresies.) This is from Chapter Three, "The Personal God":

.... A friend of mine has characterized most preaching which he hears as consisting of "if-only" sermons: "If only people would obey the Sermon on the Mount, the world would be ever so much better." The image of God that such sermons project is of a Divine floor-pacer, wringing his hands over the mess men are getting into and wishing desperately he could think of something to do about it. How often one hears in sermons phrases like this : "God is trying to do so and so"; "God hopes we will hear and obey him." Some of this language is inevitable as the language of analogy, but we ought to be quite sure we see how very misleading it can be. God isn't really "trying" to do anything; he is doing it. God doesn't "hope" for anything; he is quite aware that his will is done perfectly both in earth and in heaven. The danger of talking about a limited God who is trying things out and hoping things will work out well is that one can put no confidence or trust in such a God. For if a limited and finite God is really our image of the Divine, then he may very well fail. Perhaps our experience with democracy has misled us into thinking that God is not so much the eternal King of creation as just a candidate seeking that office (and the preachers are his precinct workers, out drumming up votes). But what if he isn't elected?

Orthodoxy's answer to this heresy has always been the assertion that God can do anything he wants, but what he wants is to create free beings able to respond to him wholeheartedly and trustingly. Omnipotence is not the ability to do anything; it is the ability to achieve one's purpose. .... God's omnipotence is proved by the freedom with which he allows man to run the world as he wants. If he were interfering all the time, shrilly insisting that men hew to the line and seizing them by the scruff of the neck if they did not, one would conclude that he was a very nervous and uncertain Deity, indeed. God's omnipotence lies in his capacity to make all things work together for good, finally and ultimately. Perhaps the most powerful evidence for this is the story of the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

John M Krumm, Modern Heresies (1961), pp. 48-49.