Subscribe to Ailbe Newsletters
Sign up to receive our email newsletters and read columns about revival, renewal, and awakening built upon prayer, sharing, and mutual edification.
Having spent a good deal of yesterday afternoon unsuccessfully trying to craft a poem, I am reminded of two things: First, poetry matters, as Dana Gioia argued in his masterful book invoking that idea. And second, poetry is hard work. Which is good, because if it weren't there would be…
Professor Jerry Pattengale is encouraged that college students today seem to be asking the big questions once again. In his review of Anthony T. Kronman's Education's End (Books & Culture, November/December 2009) Dr. Pattengale is hopeful that this portends the beginning of a new era in higher education, one in…
Sitting here looking at a book galley I need to read - a book entitled Your Church is Too Small by John Armstrong - I'm reminded of a book from a generation ago by J. B. Phillips, Your God is Too Small. In that book Phillips examined and debunked a…
The Economist reports (October 31st) that fertility rates worldwide are falling and that, before too much longer, the world will reach a point of population stability. Just enough children will be born each year to replace, but not increase, the existing population of around 9 billion. The reasons for this…
Three reports out yesterday should cause us to question the federal government's ability to manage large-scale economic or social enterprises. First, sources reported that it is highly unlikely that taxpayers will ever see any of the more than $80 billion in bailout money "loaned" by the federal government to Chrysler,…
On the same day Democrats in the House unveiled their plan for health care reform - a sweeping, 2,000 page bill that includes what Speaker Pelosi is wont to refer to as a "robust public option" - Treasure Secretary Tim Geithner was on the hill arguing for more executive branch…
For as long as I can remember, American foreign policy has been promulgated on an economic basis, primarily in the form of economic aid and trade. Diplomacy aids this agenda, with military involvement a sort of last resort. American administrations have set a course which insists that freedom comes with…
I keep coming back in my mind to that phrase, "the mendacity of hope", which I mentioned the other day. I couldn't help but wonder if the writer meant all hope or just the flimsy and false hope of politically correct politicians. So I wrote to Mr. Klavan to ask…
Last night on the Fox News Network Bill O'Reilly reported that a recent poll indicates the country is turning right, that conservative political philosophy appears to be once again on the ascendancy. As many as 40% of all Americans identify themselves as conservatives while only 26% say they're liberal in…
I encountered this phrase in a review by Andrew Klavan of John Derbyshire's We Are Doomed (The New Criterion, October 2009). Derbyshire is a resolute conservative whose book debunks the world of "political correctness" and its silly ideologies of "hope and change" (my new favorite bumper sticker: "So how's that…
Yesterday, after having rallied Democratic Party big-wigs to stump for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds - including the President himself - the Obama Administration tossed the likely loser under the bus. It must have become really clear to the President that Senator Deeds couldn't win. Bob McDonnell's lead is just…
The "culture of narcissism" that Christopher Lasch described back in the late '70s was an alarming idea at the time. Had Americans really descended so low as to think only of ourselves in every decision, choice, and action? At about the same time, Robert Ringer sought to make a life…
In spite of the many beautiful examples of Celtic Christian art that survive today from the period of the Celtic revival, we know the names of only three artists, and only one of them (Muiredach) because he told us himself, having carved his name on the base of the cross…
Twentieth-century liberal theology unraveled and lost a huge chunk of its following as evangelical scholars pointed out its fatal flaw: Liberals had cut the faith of Christ off from real history. By launching the events of resurrection and redemption into a realm of "salvation history" somewhere, at best, merely tangential…