Touchstone

America's leading Christian journal of ecumenical orthodoxy.
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The website is live. The speakers are announced. Registration is open.

Join us September 24–26 as we celebrate Touchstone's 40th anniversary.

https://t.co/SvjIoFY1sY

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A Faithful Church Is a Trembling Church
Scripture speaks plainly: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10). What happens, then, when this fear is lost?

https://t.co/hOAlKNtz4L

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The May/June issue of Touchstone ships next Monday.
Featuring Matthew Crawford’s 2025 conference talk.

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Looking for Jacobs: Some Trivial Thoughts on the Study of Philosophy https://t.co/KeDGr0XIRq

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Jonathan Pageau explains that sin can stretch things to a certain distance, but at some point the rubber band will snap back. You cannot have an entire cultural enterprise based on rebellion. Eventually, reality will reassert itself. And that is happening now.

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Paul Kingsnorth warns that the end game of technology is the replacement of nature with the machine.

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https://t.co/SvjIoFY1sY See you in September!

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Beauty is ennobling, sometimes in dramatic ways, but much more often in subtle ways. And it inspires us to aspire to things that are worth aspiring to—things that, like beauty itself, are intrinsically and inherently enriching of the human spirit. https://t.co/uwfSvg8iWD

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"This rebellion against reality is the logical outworking of the deepest premises of our culture—which is why the crisis of authority in our politics and our society is not just a political and social crisis, but a metaphysical and religious one."
https://t.co/Wi2IYnZTMn

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"We’re born into a world that comes ready-made. Whatever we make of it must fundamentally be in keeping with it; otherwise, it is questionable." C. R. Wiley
https://t.co/cVyHXYzXwf

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Self-discipline is essential to the Christian life, and technological ascesis of one form or another is particularly important in our constantly evolving world. https://t.co/ZpycZfHrIz

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"They who deny that there is any special beauty in man and woman...will eventually miss or deny the beauty of much less obviously beautiful things, and the profundity of much less obviously profound mysteries."
https://t.co/RchUs1fEFi

[Salvo @salvomagazine]

For years, those of us at Salvo Magazine and our sister publication, Touchstone, have argued that the problem with libertarian freedom is its outcome-neutrality, devoid of any substantive vision for human flourishing (for example, see the concerns Robin Phillips raised in 2022: https://t.co/U74ogBNPDO). Although critics have dismissed this as a caricature, the libertarians at Reason Magazine are now attacking Mark Meador, President Trump's nominee for FTC commissioner, for—guess what?—advocating human flourishing. Among Meador's alleged offenses is a tweet in which he explicitly connected freedom to human flourishing (see https://t.co/jvGZX0rQJZ) These libertarians, with their simplistic "Big Government = Bad / Big Business = Good" ideology, demonstrate how the value-neutral freedom of the Enlightenment has left us with a purely negative conception of liberty predicated on the belief that it is good to avoid ever saying what is good. But as Robin Phillips pointed out in the article referenced above, "To be truly free to pursue goodness, one must engage in the arts of self-limitation and restriction, both at the level of the individual and society. But the libertarian conception of freedom subverts this by undermining our ability to inquire, not simply about The Good, but even about the ends of human society. This leaves us with a type of political nihilism where one is expected to do politics without knowing the ends for which the polis even exists."

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"[George] Washington believed that a shared national sense of morality was the essential element of a free society, and that a moral standard based on human reason alone was no standard at all."
https://t.co/dpgDba8uXH

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"Christianity is the religion of the Incarnation: human nature is elevated by the entrance of God himself into our flesh in order to save us from our sins and make us into persons fit to enter into his kingdom." https://t.co/Etw2edfR3H

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"[Bad art[ fills our minds with sounds, images, and phrases that are distracting if not corrupting. They occlude our vision by filling our memory and imagination with distorted depictions of reality." R.V. Young https://t.co/Etw2edfR3H

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C.R. Wiley concluded his talk at the recent Touchstone Conference by observing that transhumanists have shifted the focus of an over-realized eschatology from social life to biology. They’re seeking godhood without God, and a resurrection without a final judgment.

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"The material magician that Lewis saw coming is now here, and their incantations threaten to take possession of us. Will we allow ourselves to be hacked or will be resist?" C.R. Wiley

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John Davidson argues that a de-christianized society will not just be hostile to Christianity, but also to the ideals that are dependent on Christianity: equality under the law, basic human rights, etc.. None of these things will be tolerated in a post-Christian order.

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In the opening keynote of the 2024 Touchstone Conference, Aaron Renn urges the church to think about the new possibilities opened up by the negative world. "As Christianity slides to minority status...we should be asking ourselves, 'What possibilities does this open up for us?'"