Paul Schrader, the famed screenwriter and director, does not make subtle films. His latest movie, First Reformed--the story of a depressed, emotionally exhausted, and ultimately suicidal minister (played by Ethan Hawke), a man haunted his failed marriage, his dead son, his collap … | Continue reading
“Florida man” is the source of many ridiculous headlines. So many that now there is a “game” you can play by typing your birthday and “Florida man” into Google to see what headline comes up. September 5: “Florida man caught with nearly 200 illegal lobsters.” September 6: “Naked F … | Continue reading
“Wayfaring in America.” Brian Smith reviewsThe American Road Trip and American Political Thought, by Susan McWilliams Barndt—a book that reflects on what Americans’ fondness for travel narratives suggests about our political culture. He concludes with the “radical possibility tha … | Continue reading
By seeking to protect and restore natural beauty, create lovely urban design, bring art into our communities and support local sustainable agriculture and healthy fish and wildlife populations, we can also build community and reduce polarization. | Continue reading
Yuval Levin recently highlighted right and leftwing critiques of capitalism in National Review’s May issue. Many of these critiques, he says, are serious and should not be ignored. “For the most part, these complaints are not fundamentally economic but rather are moral,” writes L … | Continue reading
The truth is that many American Christians do not want a local church. We’re too independent and consumeristic for that. | Continue reading
That this country boasts something called “The Great American Songbook” is one of the best jokes around. The Great American Songbook? Our songs—let alone songbooks—don’t stick around long enough to get great. We mow through our past like dry grass. Our most convincing traditions … | Continue reading
“What a Famous Poet Can Teach Rural Pastors.” Stephen Witmer looks at George Herbert’s classic and asks, “what if we were to readCountry Parsonfor its original purpose: as a guide for doing rural ministry?”“Celebrating the American Front Porch.”Strong Townshad two essays last wee … | Continue reading
Beauty is the beginning and end of all true knowledge: really to know, one must first love, and having known, one must finally delight; only this “corresponds” to the Trinitarian love and delight that creates. | Continue reading
Those who are inclined to agree with Patrick Deneen (and others) that liberalism has indeed failed may ask what way of life would be more conducive to human flourishing. Deneen speaks favorably of something akin to Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option, where people seek to build a “count … | Continue reading
A folklife is made up of the food and craft, the local stories, songs, remedies and rumors—relationships that define a place as much as the geology and ecology do. | Continue reading
True charity draws all people, each one gifted and broken, into an interdependent community. | Continue reading
From here in my long-time Midwestern location, these lots are unshakeable reminders of a place in Texas where a shameful darkness once surrounded a part of my childhood. | Continue reading
Here’s the irony: a growing number of conservatives realize that it will require the assistance of the State to correct many of the problems that have been created by the State that was motivated by progressive commitments against the more local, parochial, and particular. | Continue reading
“The Great Land Robbery.” In the Atlantic, Vann R. Newkirk II narrates a tragic story about black land ownership in the Mississippi Delta. Between racist lending practices, global commodity markets, and, more recently, corporate purchasers, black landowners are losing ground: “In … | Continue reading
If the institutions that oversee our slow twelve-to-eighteen-year process of education are called our alma-mater (nourishing mother), why can’t the dirt-filled, dung-laden places that convey agrarian lessons taught over 20 years be our nourishing father (alma-pater)? | Continue reading
In my first essay here at Front Porch Republic, I wrote about the idea that creation-friendly agriculture is not about going back to old fashioned ways, but is actually quite cutting edge. This is especially the case since what we know about soil is pretty recent knowledge. The c … | Continue reading
Most of my reading time this week went to poring over proofs for the first issue of the FPR print journal. We should have copies fresh from the press at the Louisville conference, and if you won’t be able to join us there, stay tuned for ways you can get | Continue reading
Much of the American reading public would be as surprised to find that there was once an environmentalist Right as they would be to find that there was once a pro-life Left. So successfully have the dominant representatives of the American party system entrenched themselves behin … | Continue reading
Cultivate. Give order. Name. Attend. Reveal. Craft a parable. Homestead. Welcome. In Placemaking and the Arts: Cultivating the Christian Life (IVP Academic, 2018), Jennifer Allen Craft offers these paradigms and more for understanding how the visual arts can train us to be placem … | Continue reading
“Going Home with Wendell Berry.” Amanda Petrusich corresponded with Berry and then spent two days in Port Royal continuing their conversation. The result is a rich and wise conversation in theNew Yorker.Plough Quarterlyhas a new issue that is well worth reading. Titled “Beyond Ca … | Continue reading
For our elites, democratic values and grand political projects go hand in hand. Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg discussed the importance of democracy in adjudicating social tradeoffs. Zuckerberg has also recently called for “a more active role for governments and regulators” … | Continue reading
The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.--Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in FranceOn July 2nd, the residents of Lakewood Colorado were asked a very simple, yet consequ … | Continue reading
What Americans Want in CitiesWhat makes a good city? I’ve been thinking a lot about this. What makes for a city people are happy living in, and want to stay in? One answer comes from the Gallup polling organization, with support from the Knight Foundation. A few years ago, Gallup | Continue reading
In my efforts to point people to various methodologies of eco-agriculture I often encounter those who dispute these approaches. One of the frequent refrains I hear is, “We can’t go back to those old ways, we must use technology to feed the world.”People who make such assertions a … | Continue reading
Precisely because it is limitless, space is the best place to test the limits of our courage and abilities. | Continue reading
Do not seek things too difficult for you, nor examine what is beyond your strength.Think about what is commanded you, for you do not need what the Lord keeps hidden.Do not meddle in what is none of your business, for things beyond human insight have been shown to you.Speculation … | Continue reading
I’m prone to say that the gardening year resembles nothing so much as a succession of heartbreaks, and while it’s possible that this sentiment reveals more about the gardener than the activity, I think there is a universal truth in this sentiment. What with pests, disease, bad se … | Continue reading
At age 12, our daughter discovered that our front yard could be more than a place to turn cartwheels. It was also an evergreen source of income. I’d gladly pay her to mow it, which freed me up to tend the garden, pick berries, or fish the river. It’s time, | Continue reading
For most of my adult life I’ve considered myself a birder. Some people say “bird-watcher,” but for me that term conjures up the sort of goofy-looking eccentrics you see in Rocky and Bullwinkle or The Far Side. I can’t remember a serious bird enthusiast who called himself or herse … | Continue reading
MF: Mr. Chesterton, I know you have not received any training in economics at the University level. So, I will keep this simple. The world today, and throughout human history, attests to the fact that countries are made great by allowing individuals to pursue their own personal … | Continue reading
Distributism as a Problem When people think of Distributism, even people who know a little about it, they tend to see it as something problematic, something more akin to agrarianism and a naïve nostalgia for a rural past, a search for a “golden age” that never existed. In this, | Continue reading
I’ll be taking a break from the internet for a couple of weeks to recreate (and to get some writing done). I’m not sure when I’ll resume these weekly Water Dipper posts, but it will likely be the beginning of August. In the meantime, feel free to email me any | Continue reading
We live in a time of political disruption. In the United States and around the developed world we are seeing nationalist and populist agitation against the established liberal order. While this is a cause of anxiety, it is also a moment of great opportunity. There seems to be bot … | Continue reading
Jake Meador’s In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World is a remarkably successful attempt to bring together the core teachings of Christianity and the community-centered practices of an economic life less dependent on global capitalism. | Continue reading
The dark side of religion cannot be completely vanquished because human reason pales in the comparison to the highest reality, which is known through the light and the darkness of the religious experience. | Continue reading
“Book Review: Dignity by Chris Arnade.” Jake Meador uses Patrick Deneen’s recent work to frame a reading of Arnade’s photographs and stories. In a book that does not shy away from pain and darkness, Jake finds glimpses of the heavenly city for which we long.“Oh, the Places We’ll … | Continue reading
Our lives depend upon the restoration of intergenerational stability within our local communities as a norm that is loved and nurtured. Moreover, our recent obsession with measures such as GDP not only undermines our own wellbeing but threatens our relationship with our entire co … | Continue reading
Place was also indispensable to our friendship whether we realized it or not. For all our determination to be malcontents, we did secretly love our home. | Continue reading
In “The Dreams of Mrs. Flintwinch thicken,” a short chapter of Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit (1857), the kind-hearted Arthur Clennam visits his childhood home. “Oppressive secrets” pervade the crumbling house and its London neighborhood. The night engulfs Clennam in a sense of o … | Continue reading
“The Politics of Dystopia.” Ross Douthat seems to be thinking about Deneen’s book these days: “On right and left, it has become easier to imagine ways the liberal order might deserve to fall, because of evils generated from within itself.”“Conservative Women and the Intra-Conserv … | Continue reading
Christ the Heart of Creation renders fruitful the richness in, and the virtue of, the Christological grammar that rules faithful speech and thought about the person and nature of Jesus Christ. | Continue reading
I came to the work of Chris Arnade through his work documenting the social capital of McDonald’s around the United States. In his photos and captions I saw a glimpse of a world I had grown accustomed to: the chaotic and welcoming de-facto community centers springing up in the sha … | Continue reading