Author: Adam Lee

Atlas Shrugged, part III, chapter II I’ve written about the things that shouldn’t be present in Galt’s Gulch but somehow are: handmade tractors, orange groves, an entire industrial infrastructure that seemingly sprang up out of nothing. However, just as important is what’s not there, because Ayn Rand either didn’t grasp the necessity or simply overlooked…

Last week in Washington state, another special religious privilege bit the dust. The Ninth Circuit appeals court ruled unanimously that a pharmacist doesn’t have the right to refuse to fill a prescription for emergency contraception: A unanimous three-judge 9th Circuit panel on Thursday decided that the rules are constitutional because they rationally further the state’s…

My post last week asking LGBT people and allies why they still consider themselves Christian touched off a firestorm. Both in the comments here and on Twitter, I got a flood of responses from liberal Christians – some polite and friendly, others extraordinarily hostile and aggressive. There were several objections that came up repeatedly. I…

Something I’ve often wondered is why so many great or classic fantasy stories are set in a real or fictionalized Europe. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, Robert E. Howard’s Conan series, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire, Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising,…

Atlas Shrugged, part III, chapter II Left alone in John Galt’s house, Dagny is cooking breakfast when a visitor arrives: She was setting the table, when she saw the figure of a man hurrying up the path to the house, a swift, agile figure that leaped over boulders with the casual ease of a flight.…

In retrospect, the coming of marriage equality to America may well be the high-water mark of religious influence. This was the one social change that Christians fought against harder than any other, and they still failed to stop it. It’s not a stretch to conclude that this will irreversibly taint their moral credibility in the…

I have to wonder what could possibly be motivating gay and gay-affirming Christians to stay in the church. Last week, another one was unceremoniously tossed out: Julie Rodgers rocked the evangelical world last year when Wheaton College announced they would be hiring the celibate gay Christian as an associate for spiritual care in the Chaplain’s…

Between Florence + the Machine, Quiet Company, and Metric this fall, 2015 is working out to be a great year for new releases from artists I like. And you can also add Of Monsters and Men, Iceland’s skald-rock power band, whose second album Beneath the Skin came out this year. It’s suitably epic, with a…

Atlas Shrugged, part III, chapter II On the morning of her second day in the valley, Dagny wakes up in John Galt’s house (not in his bed – not yet, anyway). He greets her at the door, saying that he has to go out and fix some things: “I have to go down to the…

Human beings have always been explorers, and this week, we pushed the boundaries of our exploration one step further. NASA’s far-roving New Horizons spacecraft has completed the most important phase of its mission, making the first-ever close-up observations of Pluto. New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006 (which means the mission is just a…