Category: The Christian Review 2018
-
Why Is Tomorrow, or the Next Moment, More Important Than Today, or the Present Moment?
Deal W. Hudson January 11, 2018 My title may seem a bit pretentious, but it poses the central question of Francis O’Gorman’s 2017 book, Forgetfulness: Making the Modern Culture of Amnesia. I interviewed Francis yesterday on ‘Church and Culture,” to be aired this coming weekend, about his rich and unsettling book. Its richness lies in O’Gorman’s…
-
The Loneliness of Lincoln and Trump
Deal W. Hudson January 12, 2018 Ken Burn’s documentary masterpiece, “The Civil War,” premiered in September 1990. Its depiction of the isolation of Abraham Lincoln is strikingly similar to that of President Trump. As hauntingly narrated by David McCullough, Burn’s “Civil War” traces the rise of Lincoln from his 1847 election to Congress to his…
-
Our Trenches, Our Civil War
Deal W. Hudson January 13, 2018 There are no bayonet attacks or cannons firing away into the night, but there are trenches. Take one small town I recently visited in Maryland. “We don’t get invited to any dinner parties, or anything, anymore,” my hostess told me. The street itself is only four short blocks long…
-
A Novel About Giving the Gift of Music
Deal W. Hudson January 14, 2018 There’s a new and delightful novel, The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce, which I’m kicking myself for not having written first. The setting is a music shop whose owner, Frank, refuses to sell anything but vinyl LPs in the face of the Compact Disc whose introduction in the mid-80s quickly shrank…
-
Peter O’Toole’s Nose
Deal W. Hudson January 15, 2018 Peter O’Toole was so handsome, even men called him “beautiful,” but the perfectly chiseled nose was not part of his original equipment. In the fascinating biography of O’Toole by Robert Sellers, we discover that the 27-year old had his nose “bobbed” because he wanted “to be a movie star.”…
-
Why the 1916 Somme Slaughter?
Deal W. Hudson January 20, 2018 I’m reading Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s magisterial Somme: Into the Breach (Viking, 2016) where he attempts to explain why Great Britain suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 fatalities, on the first day of the battle, July 1, 1916. It’s a story of monumental pride, chaotic disorganization, delusional self-confidence, disingenuous calls to duty, and broken promises…
-
Trump’s First Year: A Symposium
Deal W. Hudson January 23, 2018 I’ve asked a few knowledgeable friends to join some of TCR’s contributing editors to comment on the leadership of President Trump’s first year in office. I’ve added identification where I deemed necessary. Dr. Deal W. Hudson On February 21, 2016, I wrote a column under the title, “Will Pro-Life…
-
Meeting Cervantes — the Man Who Invented the Novel
Deal W. Hudson February 1, 2018 Some books engross you immediately, that’s certainly true of William Egginton’s The Man Who Invented Fiction: How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World (Bloomsbury, 2016). I was, like many, familiar with Cervantes’s place at the beginning of a literary tradition called the “novel,” but I started the book somewhat suspicious of…
-
The Catholic King Who Supported the Muslim Invasion of Europe
Deal W. Hudson February 5, 2018 That Catholic king was Francis I who in the 16th century openly sided with Suleiman the Magnificent in his Muslim wars on Christians in Eastern Europe. The reason was simple, as explained by historian John Julius Norwich in Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis 1, Charles V, and Suleiman the Magnificent…
-
The Exquisite Beauty of the Familiar
Deal W. Hudson February 13, 2018 This morning I burst into song: “Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day.” My son, Cyprian, now twenty-one, he had not heard me do that in while, and half-smiled, half-frowned. But as I sang the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II and the melody of Richard Rodgers,…
Deal W. Hudson 