Most working adults don’t dream of spending a week of their summer tromping through the mountains with 150 high schoolers and a copy of Plato’s Meno.  But the staff of Wheatstone Academy are an odd bunch. Wheatstone Academy is the brainchild of Dr. John Mark Reynolds, founder and director of the...

“I want to have fins”, she sighed, gazing longingly at an advertisement for Disney’s The Little Mermaid. I could hardly have been more relieved; for a moment I’d thought I’d walked in on every modern mother’s nightmare – a preschooler who longs to be thin.  It’s not healthy for a four...

My mother-in-law’s first gift to us as an engaged couple was a culinary torch.  Talk about intimidating!  It may as well have been a ratcheting box wrench; I had no idea people used torches in the kitchen.  My grandmother was a model and showgirl.  When my mom left home, she didn’t even know...

I have come to terms. I’ll admit it: Philosophers are less attuned to ‘the obvious’ than most. I even remember the morning that I realized I had no choice but to accept the stereotype. A group of philosophy faculty and students were gathered in my professor’s office, and we needed...

People around the world look forward to Easter weekend for a variety of reasons: the beginning of spring break, the end of the great fast of Lent, the ears of a chocolate bunny and an Easter egg hunt.  But in five years, Russell T. Davies has transformed Easter weekend for Great Britain.  In Britain,...

I read romances during church. Or so GK Chesterton writes in his book Orthodoxy, (see my previous post for a overview). When my congregation recites the Apostles’ Creed, we are declaring what Chesterton calls “the best root of energy and sound ethics…’orthodoxy’.”  Christian Orthodoxy,...

Anyone seeking a witticized slam of ‘The New Atheism’ should stay away from Against All Gods.  The new release by Dr. Phillip Johnson and Dr. John Mark Reynolds refuses to wade into mind-numbingly circular surface arguments with writers of the new atheism. Instead, Johnson and Reynolds focus...

I have a bone to pick with G.K. Chesterton about his book Orthodoxy. It took me a ridiculously long time to read. He just had to go and make every sentence so delicious and profound that I was forced to sit back after every line in order to laugh at his wit or furiously scribble notes. Think I’m...

Communism’ is a likely candidate for ‘touchiest word of the 20th century’. While the word evokes many high-charged reactions, two seem consistent among American conservatives: First, communism is associated with naïve hippies who think there should be no war and want to sing ‘Why Can’t We...

Food and sex have shifted roles over the past fifty or so years, argues Mary Eberstadt in a fascinating essay at Policy Review. Once, social stigma condemned extra-marital philandering. Sex was a serious ethical issue, with serious personal and social consequences. Food, however, was something with few,...