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2 months ago | 
rlo.acton.org | Josh Herring
Is life worth living? Are the forms of Western life conducive to happiness? These questions are best asked in the form of a novel, and raising such questions is Michel Houellebecq’s strength. Annihilation, published in French in 2022 and translated into English in 2024, leaves the reader with the conviction that answers must be found.
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Dec 16, 2024 | 
rlo.acton.org | Josh Herring
For at least 20 years, Christian leaders have made the same argument: Culture is shaped by movies; movies are secular and immoral; therefore, making Christian movies will move culture toward Christ. As a syllogism, it’s not bad. The problem has not been with reason, but with execution. Facing the Giants, God’s Not Dead I–IV, and both Left Behind movies were typical “Christian movies.” In other word, generally terrible.
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Nov 24, 2024 | 
acton.org | Josh Herring
In Truth and Method, German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer introduces a theory of horizons to explain the way translation mediates distance in time. The author writes his work from a given moment in time; he sees the world a certain way. He publishes his book, and if he writes well his work survives and moves forward in time. The reader encounters that work from a far later moment in time. The distance that meaning must travel, Gadamer argues, is why the great books require constant retranslation.
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Sep 23, 2024 | 
rlo.acton.org | Josh Herring
Civilization transmits culture from one generation to the next, and so must be concerned with children. Education, law, the peaceful transfer of power—these civilizational elements developed over the centuries to foster the creation of children and create the space for them to grow into their inheritance.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
conservativereview.com | Josh Herring
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
thefederalist.com | Josh Herring
The classical schooling movement has become a source of retrieval, revival even, of so many sources of knowledge and human flourishing abandoned by modernity. The classical Christian school can also renew the rich Christian heritage and vitality of hymn singing. To that end, Preston Atwood’s just published hymnal, Cantate Domino: A Liturgical Songbook for Classical Christian Schools, shows how hymnody is of great educational benefit.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
rlo.acton.org | Josh Herring
Megan Basham’s new book, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda, continues to create a stir. In the weeks since publication, it has catapulted to No. 5 on Amazon’s bestseller list, and No. 12 for the New York Times. It’s a mistake, however, to take Basham’s title as her thesis, as it suggests that readers will receive a specific list of pastors who have sold their doctrine and ministries for a DNC admission ticket.
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Jul 18, 2024 | 
medium.com | Josh Herring
It is confirmed, through various medias and interviews (NYT & HotOnes, particularly), that Bando Stone & the New World is the last Childish Gambino album. In his answers, there seems to be no qualms nor bitterness to be found. Gambino was a character after all, a young, playful one at that - Glover no longer is restricted to these adjectives, as if his last few works weren't enough of a tell.
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May 14, 2024 | 
rlo.acton.org | Josh Herring
The publication of Camilo Peralta’s The Wizard of Mecosta: Russell Kirk, Gothic Fiction, and the Moral Imagination by Vernon Press is an exciting development. Peralta is part of a rising generation of scholars and completed his doctoral work at Faulkner University and spent time at Piety Hill as both a Russell Kirk seminar attendee and a research fellow in the Kirk Center’s Wilbur Fellow program.
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Feb 29, 2024 | 
rlo.acton.org | Josh Herring
Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up is not really about therapy. Instead, it’s about parents who let competitors for their authority usurp their role in raising their children and the harm such people can cause. Shrier focuses her journalistic instincts and love of research on a clear problem: the therapeutic industry is larger than ever yet has failed to improve mental health. Instead, the rising generation appears to be the least capable of self-government on record.
