The Monologue Beynd the Dialogue: Why are Dostoevsky’s characters are so real? Dostoevsky’s polyphonic world is full of free subjects, not objects. We don’t know what they might say or do next, and we suspect that the author doesn’t know either. They speak in their own voices, and Dostoevsky doesn’t drown them out. Yet Dostoevsky’s complex […]
The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost by Donna Freitas (Oxford University Press, 2017) — Apart from the usual clickbait stories of cyber bullying and sexting, Freitas finds that college students have an overwhelming urge to present themselves on social media as successful and happy. Many reported […]
Healing Victims of Human Trafficking: A Long, Slow Road to Transformation — This brief article can introduce students to human trafficking ministries. The author is the Associate Executive Director of Naomi’s House , a long-term residential program for women (18+) who have suffered from commercial sexual exploitation. The program is trauma-informed, faith-based, and comprehensive. It is designed […]
A celebration of peace through progress: This article can introduce students to London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 and modernity’s coming-of-age. The Crystal Palace resembled a mighty cathedral: the great nave, more than half a kilometer in length, was intersected by a transept where the immense barrel-vaulted glass roof dwarfed the elm trees enclosed by it. When the […]
Doctors harvesting organs from Canadian patients who underwent medically assisted death: Doctors have already harvested organs from dozens of Canadians who underwent medically assisted death, a practice supporters say expands the pool of desperately needed organs, but ethicists worry could make it harder for euthanasia patients to voice a last-minute change of heart.
Holier Than You and Me: ‘Religious Liberty’ Is the New Bully Pulpit and Its New Meaning Is Endangering Our Way of Life and What Good Is Religious Freedom? Locke, Rand, and the Non-Religious Case for Respecting It — Here are two additional discussions on the role of religion in society and its complications.
Majority of Americans Oppose Transgender Bathroom Restrictions: Here are the current PRRI survey breakdowns on several religion-and-society issues including transgender bathroom laws, church endorsement of political candidates, marriage issues, LGBT issues and more.
Would You Become An Immortal Machine? This brief review of a new book on transhumanism, To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell (Doubleday, 2017) asks, Since “The Fall,” we “lost” our god-like immortality, and have been looking for ways to regain it. Can science do this? Is mortality merely a scientific question?
Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court, and Religious Freedom: This essay (in support of the Gorsuch nomination to the Supreme Court) provides an inventory of legal issues related to religious liberty that can help students organize this complex topic. “In the United States, the law of religious freedom and church-state relations can be imperfectly, but still […]
