Aaron Bushnell served with the US Air Force as part of the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron at a base in Texas. On Sunday, the 25-year-old travelled to the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, doused himself with an accelerant of some …
CS Lewis and the myth of Christmas
From afar came merchant-men,
Bringing, on tidings of this birth, rich gifts
In golden trays; goat-shawls, and nard and jade…
This is clearly not a conventional Christian nativity. The epic poem of which these lines form a part tells another …
Does a near-death experience change you?
Two days before he died from cancer at the age of 39, my father was sitting in a hotel restaurant with my mother, in considerable discomfort. After a while, they noticed two very familiar people sitting at a table across …
The Dalai Lama’s greatest failure
Why does Buddhism get a free pass among religion’s cultured despisers? With the notable exception of the great Christopher Hitchens, who dished it out to all, most of the Western media hold Buddhism generally, and the Dalai Lama in particular, …
How the Moonies took over Japan
In his novel Confessions of a Mask, the Japanese author Yukio Mishima has a character describe his countrymen as living in a “reluctant masquerade”. It’s a good metaphor: Japanese life, while outwardly harmonious and benign, is still dictated by etiquette …