Books

Divine Ironies

May 1, 2021 Joshua Hren 4

From its very outset Christianity was . . . a feeling which merely disgusted, hid and decked itself out in its belief in a ‘another’ or ‘better’ life . . . a Beyond, invented in […]

The Dispatch

For whom Chekhov’s bell tolls

December 29, 2020 Joshua Hren 2

Before he became a literary master, Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) sang (like a “little convict”) in the church choir that his father conducted. Punctually the acolyte assisted at the altar, arose early for matins, and ascended […]

The Dispatch

Cracks of faith in the secular self

October 14, 2020 Joshua Hren 1

Harper’s editor Christopher Beha’s new novel, The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, pushes against not a few cracks in the ceiling of our age—our love-hatred of celebrities, the fabrications of our failed financial industry, our overreliance […]