Tag: community

The Hope of the American Republic: Local Coffee Shops

Because of coffee’s popularity, coffee shops can draw people together like very few other modern institutions.

Lead Kindly Light

And so, feeling blessed by the rich experiences of my ministry, I stand at the start of a new year in the dying days of the old one.

William James’s Grief

Decades of sorrow and searching for clinical evidence have strengthened his resolve, tempered now by experiences that add up to more than disparate bits of empirical data.

The True Face of Justice is Compassion

He took the words of Jesus to heart—he rarely judged others. When he passed this year, he left a memory not of condemnation, but of mercy.

A Defense of College Football Rivalries as Local Culture

College football is a local endeavor that should be enacted by those with a connection to that place.

Away From Politics with Kathleen Raine (Then Back Again)

Are we capable of that on a scale that will regenerate our political life? Perhaps not, at least for now, but we can take heart from the knowledge that, over the long course of human events, peoples have built cities that embodied high civic ends.

Hope Out of Despair: A Review of Byung-Chul Han’s The Spirit...

But I suspect that this stirring book will strike a chord with many readers of Front Porch Republic.

Fighting Loneliness and Polarization with Chili

I am not sure if Garfield ever made chili for his supporters. The men and women who descended on his property were there to meet a future president. What Garfield understood, however, is that home is the best place to begin a movement.

Shopping Local in a Storm

I mourn the storm. It’s far from over. But I also do not mourn without hope.

The Liberal Charity Model

Our need for privacy has been accentuated by the way we live, in which goods and services arrive seemingly out of the ether, things we’ve bought to consume, throw away, or do with what we wish. The faces and hands behind these goods are invisible to us.