For years, intense attention has been focused on the decline of young people attending church. Recently, it’s been discovered that younger people, especially young men, are coming back. What hasn’t been considered is another attendance issue – older people. Thom Rainer at Religion Unplugged loos at the departure of older church members.
Much, much has been written about all of the influences on the founders of the American republic, but a new one (for me, at least) was Jonathan Swift. It turns out that several of our Founding Fathers were fans of Gulliver’s Travels.
Justin Kaplan (1925-2014) was the general editor of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. He also wrote (back in 1966) what is considered to be one of the best if not the best biography of Mark Twain, which won both a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for biography. He also write a biography of Lincoln Steffens, and his biography of Walt Whitman won his second National Book Award. Kaplan’s daughter Hester has now written a biography of her father, wand went looking at Mark Twain’s home to find her dad.
More Good Reads
America 250
An October 1775 Birthday for the Continental Navy – Eric Sterner at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.
How Two Presidents Saved the Declaration of Independence – Janice Rogers Brown at Coolidge Review.
Colonel William Prescott: Heroic Commander of the Battle of Bunker Hill by Donald Ryan – book review by Sam Short at the Journal of the American Revolution.
The Revolution Could Have Started Here – Bob Thompson at American Heritage.
Israel
The Hostages Return Home and the Lies Fall Apart – Eli Lake at The Free Press.
How Real Estate-Ism Got the Deal Done in Gaza – Niall Ferguson at The Free Press.
Faith
How Do We Define the Church? – Eric Watkins at Ligonier.
“Jerusalem the Golden,” hymn by Bernard of Cluny – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.
What Do Miniature Codices Tell Us About Early Christianity? #1 – Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder.
I Thought I Didn’t Need God. I Was Wrong – Charles Murray at The Free Press.
Presbyterian Formation vs Digital Formation – Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy.
Writing and Literature
What I Learned from Reading Peter Pan to My Children – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.
Willa Cather’s prescription for modern life – Charlotte Stroud at Engelsberg Ideas.
Poetry
“What Are You Doing Here, Heart?”, poem by Fr. Girolamo Savonarola – translated by Cody Ilardo at Power & Glory.
“Church Monuments,” poem by George Herbert – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.
British Stuff
London Falling: How the Birthplace of Free Speech Became a Censor’s Paradise – Eli Lake at The Free Press.
Margaret Thatcher: late bloomer – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.
Art
Marie Lenclos in Columbia Rd. – Spitalfields Life.
Poetry – Taylor Leonhardt
Painting: A Young Man Seated Reading a Book, oil on canvas by Henri-Joseph Harpignies (1819-1916).
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