Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 80

And now, war with Turkey?

Americans’ strongest and most effective allies in the fight against ISIS are the Kurdish militias in Syria.  U.S. forces have recently been embedded with the Kurdish militias as they move in on Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of ISIS. Turkey has long been battling the rebellious Kurds within its border, which have ties with the Kurds [Read More...]

Making church buildings beautiful again

To be sure, people can pray and worship in any kind of building, a sheet metal quonset hut no less than a baroque chapel. But churches of the past, even those on a budget, wanted to evoke "the beauty of holiness" and to make structures that would glorify God.

Shake-up at the Heritage Foundation

Liberals have long used universities to do the research that guides their policies.  Conservative scholarship, often anathema in leftist-dominated academia, has instead been developed in think-tanks, institutions devoted exclusively to research and policy-making. The most important conservative think tank, arguably, is the Heritage Foundation, which has generated ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. [Read More...]

Data on why the Democrats lost

Now that the dust has settled from the presidential election and there has been time to process the data, Democrats are learning why they lost the election.  The conventional wisdom has been that they failed to get out their base.  That is, that too many minorities, women, and young adults just didn’t bother to vote. [Read More...]

Shouldn’t liberals be going to liberal churches?

Mainstream liberal Protestantism is dying, with a decreasing number of people bothering to go to their churches anymore.  This is ironic because, in many ways, the message of those liberal congregations is now widely shared among our cultural elite:  be tolerant of all; be progressive; don’t worry about the supernatural; conform to the culture.  But though the [Read More...]

Fox News co-president is ousted

Fox News has been a successful conservative-leaning news network.  But it seems to be coming apart. First, its president Roger Ailes lost his job for sexual harassment.  Recently, the same charges brought down its biggest star, Bill O’Reilly.  And a group of black employees is suing Fox for racial discrimination. Now Bill Shine, the co-president [Read More...]

Congress gets busy on the budget & Obamacare

Congress has passed a spending deal that will keep the government from shutting down.  The measure provides for increases in defense and border security.  A bipartisan committee worked out the compromise that will keep the government funded at least through September. Also, there is a chance that Congress will act on healthcare as early as [Read More...]

The Silver Chair will reboot the Narnia movies

Plans to film the Chronicles of Narnia are back on, as plans have firmed up for a movie version of the Silver Chair. This time, the studio producing the movies will be Sony–not Disney, which made the first three but then gave up on the project.  And Sony has taken the huge step of hiring [Read More...]

Assessing President Trump’s first 100 days

Saturday marked President Trump’s 100th day in office.  Even though it’s an arbitrary number and way too soon to judge a president’s accomplishments, the “first 100 days” have become a checkpoint for presidents. Trump has accomplished quite a bit:  putting Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court; initiating some pro-life policies; promoting economic growth by restarting [Read More...]

Back in the U.S.A.

We’re back from Finland.  We had a wonderful time, were well-received, and learned a lot.  We met a number of inspiring Christians, including some very devoted confessional Lutherans, in that supposedly secularist nation.  I have a great deal to tell you.  Right now, my priority is recovering from jet lag!  But it’s good to be back in [Read More...]