Denis & Margie Haack continue to write at Critique-Letters
What wrong with America?
It’s almost impossible to talk with anyone for very long before someone starts listing the reasons they think things are beginning to circle the…
Author: Denis Haack
To Bless and Not To Curse
As I walked into the nursing home where my mother lives, I was aware of being behind. Traffic was heavy—both an accident and construction…
Film Comment: The Founder (2016)
Some books are published not because there is any chance they will become best sellers but because they need to be published. What they…
Being Under Authority
This past week I witnessed the consecration of an Anglican bishop. Ordinations always fill me with a sense of wonder, because they are moments…
Reflections on my father’s funeral
On April 25th the nursing home informed us that my father had died. He was 93 and failing, though slowly, and the end came…
Film Comment: A Most Wanted Man (2014); Mary & Max (2009)
These films have two things in common. They depict characters that are marginalized, living on the edge of society bearing secrets that isolate them…
On trying to understand an Islamic quandary
A question often raised concerning ISIS is, “Why in the world would young people in the West would want to join them?” There are,…
Thinking about terrorism in Paris
Introduction This is a guest blog by an acquaintance of mine, Thomas K. Johnson, a philosopher and theologian. It’s a piece of rather…
Caring for the earth in a secular world
From the start the environmental movement has included voices that wanted to bear witness to a spiritual dimension in the stewardship of the planet.…
Ideas worth pondering—Leon Wieseltier
In “Among the Disrupted,” the cover essay for the New York Times Book Review (January 18, 2015) Leon Wieseltier laments how devices are often…