A death nobody talks about.NOTE NOTE: I need to preface this post with a little clarity about my neighbors and me. I live in an area, large HOA, etc., that is predominantly “Dutch” Reformed Christians of all varieties. Keep in mind that the United States has dozens of Reformed Christian denominations, ranging from large Presbyterian bodies... Continue Reading →
The Monk Who Wouldn’t Look Away: Thomas Merton on Resistance as a Democratic Duty
A Village That Said No In the summer of 1942, a French government minister arrived in a small Protestant village on a remote plateau in south-central France, carrying an order. He wanted a list — the names of every Jew hiding in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, so the Vichy police could round them up. The village’s pastor,... Continue Reading →
Worth More Than Gold: Rediscovering Catholic Social Teaching’s Forgotten Roots
And What CST is Not! In 1884, Swiss bishop Gaspard Mermillod brought together a curious mix of European Catholics—noblemen, economists, and a handful of priests—in the peaceful university town of Fribourg, Switzerland. For seven years, this gathering, which became known as the Fribourg Union, grappled with a question the Church had long left to politicians... Continue Reading →
One Reign, Not One Flag: Why Catholics Are Called to Reject Christian Nationalism
Savonarola's Florence (1490s)A theocratic reform movement that used the era's new technology — cheap print — to mass-distribute apocalyptic sermons, culminating in the Bonfire of the Vanities: a purity campaign against art, books, and "vain" objects, run with real civic power for about four years before it collapsed and Savonarola was executed. It's a compact... Continue Reading →
The Digital Tower of Babel: Christian Nationalism in the Age of AI & Emerging Technologies from the Perspective of Thomas Merton
The Deutsche Christen and the Volksempfänger (1933–45)This period in history, between 1933 and 1945, is probably the closest real-world precedent to what my blog post today describes, and it's rarely invoked in AI-ethics writing. The "German Christians" movement fused nationalist identity with church structure, and Goebbels' propaganda ministry subsidized a cheap mass radio — the Volksempfänger,... Continue Reading →
The Teacher: Macrina the Younger, the Woman Behind the Cappadocian Fathers — and What She Says to the Age of AI
A Deathbed History Almost Forgot Annisa, on the Iris River in Pontus, late in the year 379. A travel-worn bishop hurries up the road to his family’s old estate. Gregory of Nyssa has not seen his older sister in eight years. He has just buried his brother Basil, the most famous churchman in the East; the... Continue Reading →
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