The Narthex

In August San Francisco’s Department of Public Health limited the number of attendees at outdoor religious celebrations to 12 people. No indoor gatherings were permitted. This order stood in stark contrast to the city’s guidelines for indoor retail establishments, which were allowed to operate at 25% capacity, and…

Every nation cherishes an image of itself. We are often told that Australia’s was formed on the beaches of Gallipoli, but it’s older and more complex than that. Long before the Australian union, the people of the Australian colonies developed self-images of their own, in great variety. Few directly referred…

Frank Sinatra encouraged “Luck” to “be a lady tonight.” The lady in question had not always been so. Even perfect “strangers in the night,” wondering as they do “what were the chances” of “sharing love,” might well fare better. Johnny Mathis, he of the honeyed throat, was more upbeat. “Guess…

In liberal Western circles it has long been axiomatic that Christian missionaries were guilty of offenses against humanity. These include racial discrimination, genocide, the introduction of alcoholism and venereal diseases, the imposition of a sense of guilt onto innocent sexual relationships, and the heartless suppression of native cultures of great…

With the presidential election approaching, my brother and I were discussing the sad state of affairs in our beloved America: riots, conflict between liberals and conservatives, deteriorating infrastructure coast to coast, and excess national debt. My brother owns and operates several successful businesses, so he knows what it takes to…

When I hear “Q,” I think of Quelle. Quelle is the German word for “source.” Philologists in the early twentieth century who studied the Synoptic Gospels (the Gospel of St. John is obviously sui generis, but the Gospels of Sts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke often overlap) began to wonder whether…

My first desktop computer cost $3,500 in 1986. When I learned how to download international stock market data, it was exhilarating, as if contacting extraterrestrial sources. Not many had a desktop computer back then, so I thought it would give me a trading edge. I was disappointed. That computer was…

Religion ought to have sheltered American democracy from the dangers of irreligion, as de Tocqueville famously observed, but it did not. This practical failure of religion in part explains the surprise election of Donald Trump in 2016. Trump’s supporters are not as anxious about the fate of their country—although, to…

Reflecting on the West’s strategy of nuclear deterrence, Winston Churchill expressed the hope that “safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.” Can such a hope be reasonable? Some argue that however odious it is, nuclear deterrence, in light of world realities, is…

Nowadays many people hope for a multinational and god-free world. That is their “promised land.” For such people Christianity has brought more misery than relief, more gloom than joy, more war than peace, more hatred than love. And – let us be honest – they can produce evidence to support…

Our pleasant Massachusetts suburban neighborhood smelled horrible on rare occasions. The perfume of  blooming lilacs across the road couldn’t mask the odor wafting on a hot summer breeze. One day my brother and I followed our noses and hiked into a forest bordering the local golf course. We heard the…

In 1970, I arrived in San Marcos, California, on a donated bike -- the end of my ten years on the road in a cross-country penniless ministry. I found a minimum-wage job as an electrical construction estimator at a local company. After working three years, living frugally in a barn…

In California, where bad things often begin, the papers tell us that we are facing a climate apocalypse. The fires are, indeed, horrific. But there’s no turning back from a true apocalypse. Something closer to a true apocalypse awaits us, and we are currently planning to hasten its arrival. Our…

Giant mutant ants from atomic weapons-testing in the desert are multiplying faster than we can kill them. They will annihilate our doomed human race within a year. That’s the scenario of the 1950s movie Them! After re-watching this classic film with fascination and horror, I freaked out this morning when…

I have written about the “COVID Crisis” before, earning the approval of some and disagreement of others. I remain convinced that the extraordinary measures being taken by governments to deal with it are excessively out of proportion to the real miseries – social, cultural, economic and medical – that they…