10 Jan 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
An article from The Nation was recently making the rounds having to do with a putative "scare tactic" employed by Republicans in the debate over abortion, and particularly the abortion of babies who test positive for genetic disorders such as Down syndrome. The article lacks a good deal of argumentative...
Read more → 11 Oct 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the last post we looked at Samuel Willard's discussion of the first of the "mutual duties" husbands and wives owe to each other in the context of his exposition of Westminster Shorter Catechism Q/A 64, which he calls "conjugal love." In today's post, he proceeds to the next of these shared duties,...
Read more → 02 Oct 2017
Posted by Alastair Roberts 
After the death of Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine, many people have been reflecting upon his cultural significance. Several of us recalled an especially powerful piece on Hefner from 2003 by Read Mercer Schuchardt. Christianity Today later published the piece here. Having read the original...
Read more → 20 Sep 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
As I noted last time, Samuel Willard's next order of business in his exposition of Westminster Shorter Catechism Q/A 64 is to discuss the mutual duties of husbands and wives--those to which they are equally obliged--before discussing their peculiar or proper duties--those to which they are unequally...
Read more → 06 Sep 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Previously, we remarked that Samuel Willard first subdivides "political" relation into "public" and "private" (="oeconomical," i.e., pertaining to the household), and then divides the latter into the relations of husband and wife and master and servant. He then discusses the marriage relation, as was discussed...
Read more → 23 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
In the last post, we saw that Samuel Willard recognizes only one natural "order of superiority," that of parents over children. All other relations of superior and inferior are what he calls "political." We further saw that he divides the "political" into the two spheres of public and private, the former...
Read more → 04 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
In Politics 1259a-b, Aristotle distinguishes between the type of authority fathers have over children and that possessed by husbands over wives as follows: "Of household management we have seen that there are three parts—one is the rule of a master over slaves, which has been discussed already,...
Read more → 28 Jul 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
A bit later in the sermon to which I've referred a couple of times previously, John Cotton details what he thinks the phrase "help meet" in Genesis 2 means. I suspect that the simple act of copying and pasting this is enough to make most contemporary Christians, including not a few who classify themselves...
Read more → 15 Sep 2016
Posted by Alastair Roberts
Since our founding, TCI has been committed to affirming the natural family and varieties of "household economics" as essential components to any sort of Christian political vision. Given the confusions of our day, this has required us to interact with both the push for modern egalitarianism and the reactionary...
Read more → 13 Sep 2016
Posted by Alastair Roberts 
A striking feature of modern Christian gender debates is how extensively the tenets of social constructivism have unwittingly been imbibed, by the very people who might claim to be its staunch opponents. Even in arguments from the most conservative quarters, there is a remarkable forgetfulness or neglect...
Read more →