This article was previously published in Sword & Spade magazine. Conor Ghallager, father of 15 and president of TAN books, put a deep problem on the chopping block.   The Father of Lies tempted our first mother with the beguiling notion of progress. He told her that if she ate of the fruit, her eyes would be opened and that she ...

Neil Postman aptly described our society as a Technopoly, or what we could also refer to as technocracy – a society fundamentally shaped and ruled by technology. Technology has played a central role civilization from the beginning, but a shift has occurred as technology has passed beyond normal human proportions. Rather than assisting us to p...

In all of my teaching (in about 50 distinct classes), I’ve seen the greatest impact of any contemporary book from John Senior’s The Restoration of Christian Culture. One line in particular always stands out, causing shock and dismay in the students: “smash the television set!” “Isn’t that so extreme? How could he say that? He’s ju...

Anyone reading this born after 1960 will not be able to comprehend the concept of a small-town telephone operator. That person in my growing up years in Lawler, Iowa was my Aunt Stella Shekleton, Dad’s sister.  Because our technologies are multiplying and changing so rapidly, and that now so many of us are growing up knowing nothing different fr...

By: Peter Strickland For Lent, I decided I would stop playing with my phone. I want to break the incessant habit of looking at my phone every time I have reason to do anything else. I have realized that I am addicted to looking at that little screen. Any break I get at class, I immediately look at my phone. Sometimes, it is impossible to resist t...

By: Colin Murphy “If you ask God for patience. You are asking God for suffering.” Fr. Nathan Goebel offered this insight on a recent episode of the excellent Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast. It caught me by surprise, but after reflecting on it I was convinced it was true. Our lives contain so many opportunities for suffering, and patien...

You may not have heard of John Senior, but he is one of the most impactful teachers and writers I have ever seen. I first heard about him from colleagues at the Augustine Institute, who recommended him knowing my interest in culture, but then it seemed like I was bumping into his students everywhere. I realized that my pastor in Littleton, Fr. ...

In my last article, “Relativism and Devices Are Dulling Your Kids’ Minds,” I addressed the issue that technology brings to the imagination of the young mind. The desire to know and seek truth is hindered by mobile devices that effortlessly provide children with the answers that instead should be answered by their parents and teachers. I am no...

The average father cannot easily face the challenges he intuits, because he doesn’t understand them. And it is not because he is unintelligent, but because the force that has overtaken the totality of the developed world is too often unrecognized.  We don’t realize it in the same way we don’t realize air – its total presence is such a give...

There’s simply no excuse anymore to think that you are harmlessly, blamelessly, and reasonably checking your phone as many times a day as you are.  And, as an example to the next generation, when you spend time looking at a screen you are helping lead the way to their unhappiness, which is unequivocally linked to their media addiction via phone ...