I read and commend Touchstone magazine (see below for its self-description), and was struck this morning by an article by Anthony Esolen entitled The Unquiet Men. Its thesis is that you can’t play it safe and follow Jesus. That has lots of implications in this society which seems to me to be moving farther and farther onto the Safety Reservation, and losing more and more of its soul. Here are a couple of paragraphs that caught my attention:

“Imagine the churches themselves turning away from the net and its great haul of fish on the stormy Sea of Galilee. Imagine them turning to another net, a so-called safety net, stitched up big enough to catch everyone in it meshes, but letting the essence of charity slip through. Think of the committees, the bureaucratic language of modern prayer….Is it possible, I am wondering, that the paltry safety of modern life is itself to blame for our insensitivity to the holy? Or rather, whether our almost obsessive desire to insulate ourselves from risk (with even our debauches made “safe” by barriers or pills) also insulate us from the most dangerous of enemies, that is, the love of God? John Ford, I believe, looked upon the weakling world we have made for ourselves, and he spat. Someone else did that too, if I remember, in the Book of Revelation.”

Touchstone is a Christian journal, conservative in doctrine and eclectic in content, with editors and readers from each of the three great divisions of Christendom – Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox. It provides a place where Christians of various backgrounds can speak on the basis of shared belief in the fundamental doctrines of the faith as revealed in Holy Scripture and summarized in the ancient creeds of the Church.

You can see the magazine online here.