Philip Jenkins

Latest by Philip Jenkins in Chronicles

• Columns

  July 2012

  Progress and Poverty

  One concern—namely, that of inequality—is dealt with easily enough. If you want to see a truly equal society, look at North Korea, where virtually everyone is a starving pauper.

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• Columns

  April 2012

  And Pastures New

  Suppose you had to choose the single motion picture that dealt most seriously and challengingly with religious matters. What might it be? Offhand, I can think of a dozen or so possible answers from various countries, and probably most cinema-literate people would agree on at least a common short list.

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• Columns

  January 2012

  The Christian in the Cave

  Given contemporary cultural debates, it is scarcely surprising that such myths commonly focus on religious themes, usually to the massive disadvantage of religion, in general, and Christianity, in particular.

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• Columns

  November 2011

  The Miracle Program

  Who today has heard of the Bridgewater Treatises? In 1829, the earl of Bridgewater left a will devoting funds to support the publication of essays “On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation.”

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• Columns

  October 2011

  Wisdom and Science

  Societies live by their mythologies, which become so passionately held that it’s usually risky to challenge them. Having said that, one major component of contemporary secularist mythology really has to be confronted, because it is so influential, so widely reflected in even the saner mass media, and so totally wrong.

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• Columns

  August 2011

  Peace With Zulus

  Like most literate Brits of my generation, I grew up immersed in the book 1066 and All That, the brilliant parody of historical writing published in 1930 by W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman.

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• Columns

  July 2011

  Killing No Murder

  Whenever the United States finds herself in a military confrontation around the world, a sizable chasm separates official policy from the expectations of ordinary people.

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• View

  June 2011

  The Triumph of Nice

  Imagine reading an interview with the founder of a new Christian church. As the interviewer points out, new denominations are scarcely a surprising story, so what makes yours so different and noteworthy? Well, explains the prophet, we have a totally different attitude toward the Bible.

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• Columns

  May 2011

  The Lost Secret of Kells

  Watching the 2009 Irish/French/Belgian film The Secret of Kells, I was genuinely surprised by the very powerful statement it made about the role of religion in history—or rather, the total absence of such a role.

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• Columns

  April 2011

  Unto Them a Child Was Born

  Normality is a fragile concept, and that observation is nowhere more true than in sexual matters. In making that point, I am not questioning the existence of absolute moral standards—quite the contrary.

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• Columns

  February 2011

  Forgetting a Villian

  Imagine it is the year 2030, and you are talking to some young adults. To your horror, you find that they have never heard the name Osama bin Laden.

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• Columns

  January 2011

  Europe's Dark Roots

  The further we remove ourselves from a knowledge of Western and specifically European civilization, the more the Hitler era appears as a simplistic morality tale, almost as an invasion of otherworldly evil into a peaceful Christian continent.

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• Columns

  November 2010

  Myths of Terrorism

  It’s been a bad year for terrorism in the United States. Not bad, fortunately, in the number of actual attacks (at least at the time of this writing), but in the continuing debasement of the word terrorism, so that it ceases to be a useful characterization of behavior and becomes merely a propaganda slogan for interest groups.

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• Columns

  September 2010

  The Daughter of Time

  There are many familiar signs that one is growing old, but I would like to propose a new candidate for the list. You know you have lived a long time when ideas and theories that would once have been regarded as fatuous nonsense suddenly become respectable and mainstream.

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• Columns

  June 2010

  Designed to Fail

  In March, Congress approved a law that many observers see as a potential catastrophe, in terms of its devastating effects on our economic future, the growth of national indebtedness, and the long-term impact on the liberty of families and individuals.

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• Columns

  April 2010

  Well, Naturally, We're Gullible

  I love Sarah Palin. That’s not necessarily because of anything she believes or advocates, but because of the pleasure I derive from watching the apoplexy she causes in liberals, especially in a university setting.

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• Columns

  February 2010

  An Inconvenient History

  Over the past decade, climate change has been a permanent fixture in the headlines, and its implications are frightening. Depending on whom you believe, the earth might be on the verge of a warming trend that could devastate much of human civilization.

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• Columns

  November 2009

  Once There Was a War

  “Sut mae? Sut rydych chi?” I’m going to assume that most readers did not understand those phrases, which translate roughly to “How are you? How are things going?”

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• Columns

  August 2009

  Looking Backwards

  Hard cases make bad law, and since 2002 the exposure of some ugly criminal cases has stirred legislators in several states to contemplate dreadful legal innovations. However far removed these crimes may appear from regular mainstream American life, the legal principles involved threaten to wreak havoc in the coming decades.

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• Columns

  June 2009

  The End of the Chain

  The global decline of fertility rates may well be the single most important trend in the contemporary world, a phenomenon that will transform our societies into something radically different from anything in recent history.

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