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December 2012

December 24, 2012

Jolly old St. Nicholas

The real Santa Claus, thought to have been a participant at the Council of Nicaea...

December 24, 2012

Christmas was NOT based on the Roman Juvenalia

In his continuing series that we've been blogging about exploding the myth that Christmas was...

December 20, 2012

The date of Christ’s “genesis”

Pastor Joseph Abrahamson has started a fascinating series on why the church celebrates Christmas on...

December 20, 2012

Who would be your Person of the Year?

As is our custom, after Time names its Person of the Year, we discuss our...

December 18, 2012

2012 as the best year there ever was

The British periodical The Spectator argues that 2012 was the best year ever: It may...

December 18, 2012

Old Calendar Protestants

Eastern Orthodox folks celebrate Christmas on a different day than we Western Christians do. They...

December 07, 2012

Pearl Harbor day

Today is the 71st anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, plunging the United...

December 05, 2012

History as a study in irony

Michael Dirda reviews a new book by the distinguished British historian J. H. Elliott, History...

October 2012

October 29, 2012

The death of a true intellectual

Jacques Barzun died at age 104. A scholar of breath-taking range, Barzun, a French immigrant,...

October 26, 2012

Christopher Hitchens on "Wolf Hall" & the Reformation

Thanks to Aaron Lewis, who saw my praise for Hilary Mantel's Booker-Prize-winning novels about Thomas...

October 25, 2012

Great quotes of St. Francis that he didn't say

Luther is not the only one that gets credited for quotable lines that he didn't...

October 18, 2012

Machiavellian reformer

British author Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize for her novel Bring Up the Bodies. ...

October 17, 2012

How Bonhoeffer, his wife, and brother-in-law opposed the Nazis

The New York Review of Books has published a rather remarkable article by Elisabeth Sifton...

September 2012

September 21, 2012

Jesus’ Wife

I'm kind of behind, with my surgery and all, so this has already gone around,...

September 20, 2012

Why do we even have a president?

Historian Kenneth C. Davis looks at the origin of the office of the President, something...

September 18, 2012

Finding Richard III

Richard III was the last Plantagenet king of England. In Shakespeare's telling, in the play...

September 10, 2012

Progressivism and college football

George Will reviews The Rise of Gridiron University: Higher Education's Uneasy Alliance with Big-Time Football...

September 07, 2012

Progressivism and omnipotent government

In line with the "Obama as Messiah" post, here is another example of secularism turning...

September 04, 2012

The era of black-and-white TV

President Obama dismissed the Republican convention in these terms: “Despite all the challenges that we...

August 2012

August 31, 2012

From citizens to clients

George Will sums up Spoiled Rotten: How the Politics of Patronage Corrupted the Once Noble...

August 29, 2012

One giant leap for a man

Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, has died. Another Lutheran...

August 21, 2012

Archaeology and the Bible’s big picture

Eric Metaxas summarizes some recent findings in Middle Eastern archaeology, ones that confirm not just...

August 20, 2012

An ancient brain

Manasseh was King of Judah; Athens got rid of its kings and started on the...

August 03, 2012

William Tell and Chick-fil-A

An overwhelming number of chicken sandwiches were served on Wednesday as vast numbers of Americans...

August 03, 2012

When Taft saved the Constitution from Teddy Roosevelt

In the course of a column on Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz's victory in Texas...

July 2012

July 30, 2012

It’s the likability, stupid

The economy is in the toilet, unemployment is over 8%, our foreign policy is a...

July 26, 2012

Damnatio memoriae

I salute Steven L. Jones, a student at Houston Baptist University, for recalling another of...

July 17, 2012

The history of eugenics

The History News Network posts an earlier article by Edwin Black on the American eugenics...

July 13, 2012

TV’s most powerful moments

The Nielson ratings people and Sony surveyed just over 1,000 Americans to determine the top...

July 09, 2012

Three reasons why we are so messed up

Here is a fascinating essay by Ed Driscoll on different theories about why the modern