Russellarbenfox

LATEST ARTICLES ( 638 )

• Thoughts on Berry (Autobiographical and Otherwise)

  

  I Wendell Berry—Kentuckian, farmer, poet, novelist, environmentalist, pacifist, patriot, Christian, agrarian, and to my mind most importantly, essayistic thinke... Read more

  Posted on 09 September 2026 SOCIETY

• An Argument About Teaching, Technology, and Being a Tool-Using (and...

  

  [Cross-posted to Front Porch Republic]Joel Mathis, a fellow Kansas writer and friend, recently reflected on joining what may be something of an anti-AI... Read more

  Posted on 26 August 2026 SOCIETY

• 13, 15, 20, and 33

  

  On August 13th, Melissa and I had been married for 33 years. And as of today, August 15th, I’ve officially been employed at Friends University for 20 years (as... Read more

  Posted on 15 August 2026 SOCIETY

• We Were Never Spacemen (But Glen Definitely Comes Closer Than Me)*

  

  I met Glen Henshaw 39 years ago, in the late summer of 1987, presumably in one of the hallways on the 4th floor of V-Hall in the old Deseret Towers student... Read more

  Posted on 21 July 2026 SOCIETY

• On (Not) Losing Our (Civil) Religion

  

  On April 3, 1890, in Lehi, Utah, my maternal great-great-grandmother, Martha Mercer Kirkham, joined with other women to form a local chapter of the Woman... Read more

  Posted on 04 July 2026 SOCIETY

• Getting Direct About the Politics Behind Kansas’s August Amendment

  

  Walking around my Wichita neighborhood over the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed something about the yard signs encouraging people to “Vote No” on the... Read more

  Posted on 02 July 2026 SOCIETY

• A Follow-Up on Christian Influence in Kansas (Democratic Edition)

  

  [An expansion upon my latest Insight Kansas column, with the help of an image from The Active Age]Two months ago, I wrote a column (which I later expanded... Read more

  Posted on 04 June 2026 SOCIETY

• On Warren Farha, Cultural Renewal, and the (Too Few) Bookish Places Where It...

  

  Last week Warren Farha—a devout Orthodox Christian, a soft-spoken descendent of Lebanese immigrants and merchants, a lifelong Wichitan, and most relevantly,... Read more

  Posted on 26 May 2026 SOCIETY

• From Collective to Individual: Easter Thoughts on Constantine, Carrie Nation, an...

  

  [A meandering and marginally holiday-appropriate extension upon my latest Insight Kansas column.]Decades ago, the Christian theologian Stanley Hauerwas—a man wh... Read more

  Posted on 05 April 2026 SOCIETY

• Kathleen Jolley Fox, 1945-2025

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent] By the time my youngest brother, Baden, and I arrived at the Spokane Valley Hospital in Washington state on Thursday,... Read more

  Posted on 25 January 2026 SOCIETY

• The 10 Best Books I Read in 2025

  

  Phil Christman, Why Christians Should be LeftistsA wonderful, short--and yes, somewhat rambling, but only in the way the best kind of earnest testimonies... Read more

  Posted on 31 December 2025 SOCIETY

• Recognizing Christianity’s Universal Leftism for What It Undisputedly Is

  

  [Cross-posted to Religious Socialism]Phil Christman, a writer and lecturer at the University of Michigan, is a committed Protestant Christian. Read more

  Posted on 30 December 2025 SOCIETY

• The 10 Best Movies I Saw in 2025

  

  As always, this is my listing of what I think were the best movies I saw in the past calendar year, not necessarily movies that came out during that year. Read more

  Posted on 29 December 2025 SOCIETY

• Becky Elder, a Local Kansas Matriarch (and More)

  

  Last week, on a clear and cold Friday afternoon, I joined a couple of hundred other people to attend, and pay our respects during, the graveside service of... Read more

  Posted on 17 December 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon #8: Milk and Honey (Plus, a Summary)

  

  John Lennon was murdered 45 years ago this evening, on December 8, 1980. The photo attached was taken that afternoon--ghoulishly, but entirely coincidentally, i... Read more

  Posted on 08 December 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon #7: Double Fantasy

  

  Double Fantasy is an iconic album, for obvious reasons. Leaving behind Los Angeles, May Pang, the experiments (and exasperation) in the studio of Walls and... Read more

  Posted on 30 November 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon: Rock 'n' Roll (along with McCartney's CHOBA B CCCP and Run...

  

  It would be nice to believe that Lennon wanted, in early 1975, with his immigration woes and his conflicts with the U.S. government apparently finally coming... Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2025 SOCIETY

• Two Comments and Two Questions About Religious Liberty

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent]Last week I attended the "Kansas Summit for Religious Freedom," a gathering designed to provide representatives of multiple... Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2025 SOCIETY

• Listening to Lennon #5: Walls and Bridges

  

  Lennon recorded Walls and Bridges back in New York City, in the summer of 1974, after having lived for most of the previous year away from Yoko Ono in Los... Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2025 SOCIETY

• Rauch Among the Mormons

  

  [Cross-posted to By Common Consent]Jonathan Rauch’s Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy, the latest book by the longtime policy... Read more

  Posted on 07 September 2025 SOCIETY