Front Porch Republic
Inheriting Wisdom’s Mansion: A Review of An Invitation to the Liberal Arts
Myers considers four particular questions or misconceptions that many prospective students have regarding the liberal arts.
Becky Elder, a Local Kansas Matriarch (and More)
I walked into the makeshift classroom, saw quotations from McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers all around the walls, and assumed I was entering a traditionally conservative environment. But after a day of…
Fairer Country, Higher Ground, or Home
The title poem, “Home Song,” is deceptively simple in its sing-song iambic trimeter and mostly monosyllabic words. Yet the reader is pulled quickly into a dream of home, hearth, children,…
Still Asking Berry’s Question
The promise of liberation from drudgery quickly becomes liberation from purpose.
Nutcracker Dreams
Because those dancing it have worked and stretched and warmed up for three months prior to performance, breaking in shoes and bandaging toes, the dream is anchored by reality.
News, Notes, & Podcasts
Newsletter Editor:
Jeffrey BilbroEnter your email to receive a weekly newsletter highlighting what’s new at FPR.
The Best Songs of 2025
I present to you my twenty favorite songs of the year! What did I miss? Email it to me at [email protected].
Do You Hear What I Hear?: Songs That Feel Like Christmas
In conjunction with my recent FPR article “What Does Christmas Feel Like?” A Symposium of Popular Songs is listening to songs that recall my halcyon Christmases—let’s say 1987-1994, though few…
Plumbers, Pepsi, and the Amish
Antón Barba-Kay articulates the appeal of Curtis Yarvin and diagnoses the very-online irony that marks his rhetoric.
Sons of No One: Songs About Young Adulthood
This week, we’re listening to songs about young adults (let’s say 18-35) on A Symposium of Popular Songs. Think of it as a companion piece to our very first episode,…
More Articles
Gilead Reveals A Gilded World
The stuff of ordinary creation can shine and shimmer with a supernatural radiance
The Christmas Noir of The Reckless Moment
The classic era of film noir, the 1940s and 1950s, is a great reservoir of sin. We sometimes forget that all of the Biblical traumas and warnings can be found in this genre, under the cover of coats and hats.
What Does Christmas Feel Like?
Something of those Christmas Eve services arises in me every time I watch a sacristan light a candle.
Man’s Meaning Crisis and The Road Back to God: A Conversation with Joe Barnard
Offering a way forward.
You Think This Machine’s Your Friend, But It’s Not
"You’ve Got Mail" is a love letter from Kingsnorth’s Machine
The Comfortless Suffering of Pagan King Lear
There are things that we actually cannot bear—and things that cannot be borne will break us. . . . What then is to be made of unbearable suffering?
The State of the Porch
FPR aims to gather and encourage those who aspire to a creaturely life even in a machine age.
Lift a Glass to Mark Mitchell
Leave a comment to thank Mark. Add your good wishes to mine. He deserves them.
From the Editor—Local Culture 7.2: Work and Leisure
Wading in a river and lumberjacking in the woods are at once work and play, play and work, and in this they resemble anything we might do for instrumental ends and yet, at the same time, take a great deal…
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
This stranger, rain or shine, snow or hail, more religiously than I prayed as a child, lifted the flap and dropped letters into my family’s home.
From the Archive
From the Editor–Local Culture 4.1: The Civil Dissent Issue
Think not, then, of the ubiquitous screens and hideous architecture and suburban metastasis and microwave dinners. Think rather of Eric Voegelin’s famous quip—Voegelin, who said that “no one is obliged…
Spiritual Secession: A Conversation with Paul Kingsnorth
" None of your readers need me to tell them that the useful work is practical, particular, small and careful: to get away from screens as much as we can, get…
Tanya Berry’s Faithful Art
Women like Tanya bring artistry and honor to everything they touch: the homes they inhabit, the land they steward, the children they raise. These photographs are testimony to the clear,…
Can There be a National Conservatism?
Here’s the irony: a growing number of conservatives realize that it will require the assistance of the State to correct many of the problems that have been created by the…
Cheese Should Be Dangerous
The cheese crafted here came about as a byproduct of a larger whole, the natural dividend of a complete way of life, and this is the foundation of the best…