I sat down to record a conversation with Doxacast, the Christian sci-fi/fantasy podcast associated with Doxacon. We discussed the history of science fiction, the eugenic dangers of utopia, and the best religious science fiction. I also give a small preview of my upcoming Doxacon talk on theology and teleology in Magic: The Gathering. Here's an excerpt from the conversation: "If we consider science fiction to be a category of worlds where there are revolutionary changes and wh

"There’s a kernel of an interesting religious film in First Reformed, the new arthouse release from writer-director Paul Schrader (Mishima, Taxi Driver, The Last Temptation of Christ). Unfortunately, it’s buried underneath the grim weight of the terrorist fantasy that Schrader really wants to explore. The film stars Ethan Hawke as a tortured Protestant reverend slowly killing himself with alcohol and self-neglect. His manly grimacing may net him an Oscar; it’s the sort of int

I discuss teaching U.S. history through primary sources at Great Hearts schools: "As for the particular question of teaching American history, Bergez admits there’s something paradoxical about applying a classical approach. Ancient thinkers like Thucydides thought history was not simply old things being displaced by new things, but “something permanent and perennial revealing itself.” But Americans often think of themselves as an exception or aberration. This nation is “A New

"The best plaque at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibit Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination has little to do with the fashionable ensemble it accompanies. It instead takes the fact that designer Rossella Jardini is riffing on the starched cornette of the Daughters of Charity (think The Flying Nun and you’re on the right track) to launch into an anecdote about Charles de Gaulle. Apparently, the statesmen felt such affection for the Grey Sisters’ traditio