An ancient modern confusion
Ken Myers offers a brief primer on the heresy of Gnosticism
The market-driven marriage?
The commodification of everything is a problem, not an opportunity.
Roger Shattuck, R.I.P.
Rogert Shattuck: “The age-old uneasiness about the subversive potentialities of unfettered knowledge reveal a recognition that knowledge can bring unhappiness and ruin as well as insight and liberation.”
Christianity and science in the beginning
Historian Stephen A. McKnight argues that Fransic Bacon did not employ religious ideas with cynical and manipulative intent, but with the utmost sincerity. But was he theologically sound?
“The Image Culture”
Christine Rosen on how the ubiquity of images erodes their power.
The arts and public funding
Ken Myers answers a letter from a high school student asking about whether Christians should support the idea of federal funding for the arts.
Technology’s deeper resonances
An issue of The New Atlantis provides evidence that it is the most instructive and insightful publication examining the many facets of the relationship between technology and culture.
The Necessity of Tradition
“If a society wishes to find a way of ensuring that newly emergent and valuable techniques are passed on and preserved, its members must feel themselves under an ethical obligation to leave the best possible world not only for their children, but also for their grandchildren.”
The Truth about Harvard
Ross Douthat looks at the effects of postmodern academic theory on the humanities. “The retreat into irrelevance is visible all across the humanities curriculum.”
Art and the loss of transcendence
Suzi Gablik looks at how modern and postmodern artists have struggled with living in modern and postmodern societies in which there is no public vocabulary for the sacred.