Naturally, it was a pleasure to join the gents The New Thinkery to discuss the start of Livy's *Ab urbe condita libri*. Take a break from your post-debate hand-wringing by listening to us gab about Livy, Aeneas, Romulus, the Sabine women, et al.!

Maybe -- and I'm just spit-balling here -- maybe we could vote in some way that doesn't depend extensively on a public service with inevitable "widespread problems" at a time when declining confidence in elections is a serious threat to national unity.

Read the whole thread. The monetization of human emotional intensity is a one-way ratchet. There's no profit model based on helping people to be calm, quiet, focused, disciplined, patient. Those virtues are being steamrolled for marginal GDP boosts.

Can someone explain to me how the Evangelical polemic against political "fear" got started? Proof-texting? Pretty sure the Bible isnt telling you that there isnt anything temporally you shouldnt be afraid of. Proverbs is pretty much full of things that you're supposed to fear!

Maybe a better way of asking is: why is voting for one person because you're afraid of threats to "our democracy" Christian while voting for someone because you're afraid of en masse social upheaval is somehow not Christian?

This does not sounds like something that a Christian in the PRC would say...

People can feel about this however they want I’m just not sure you can get “autocracy is ok to worry about but mobs aren’t ok to worry about” from the Bible.

And if anyone is wondering yes I’ve started reading a new anti-CN evangelical politics book.

Alberto Fujimori, ex-president of Peru who was convicted of human rights abuses, dies at 86 ow.ly/a5Vl105IqH4

It’s only fear-driven voting if it comes from the Trumpiste region of France; otherwise, it’s just sparkling self-righteous Democracy-saving.

Correspondence used to be an art form. Email extinguished it through convenience, writes Joseph Epstein on.wsj.com/3AXce7V

📚We are excited to open preorders for our newest book, Richard Hooker on Natural Theology and Scripture! In this short book, David Haines demonstrates how natural theology and Scripture fit together via a study of Richard Hooker. Preorder for $10.50! davenantinstitute.org/richard-hooker…

This from Andrew T. Walker at The Gospel Coalition on how Evangelical political theology needs an upgrade is very good. thegospelcoalition.org/article/politi…

For those who are interested in such things, if I have time later today I may try to get a post up at Ad Fontes on (what I take to be) a Homeric allusion on Dylan's ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS.

This isn't just a light show. It's a demonstration of futuristic military power. You are looking at an unarmed drone swarm.

A Catechesis in Apostasy - American Reformer americanreformer.org/2024/09/a-cate…

Republicans in Illinois can't rub two sticks together to make fire, much less wield any power over redistricting.

Thinking about how Robert Redford's 2010 *The Conspirator* was a George W Bush/Iraq War protest movie that Im not sure could actually be made today. Its like the Jim Webb of movies, basically.

But you do stop being churchly, and the significance of that shouldn’t be understated.