Walter Russell Mead

Walter Russell Mead

Walter Russell Mead is the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute, the Alexander Hamilton Professor of Strategy and Statecraft at the University of Florida, and the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal. He is also a Contributing Editor with Providence Magazine.

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Day 13: The Light at the End of the Yule Blog

Christmas is important to Christians because from their point of view the Baby Jesus is the meaning of Christmas, and the meaning of Christmas is the meaning of life.

Day 12: How Real is the Meaning?

The Gospels occupy a kind of center point in human culture as a whole: products of a particular time and place, but comprehensible to all.

worship religion
Day 11: Sitting in Darkness, Blogging the Light

If we leave religion out of our national conversation, we end up with a vapid conversation that doesn’t address the deepest realities that move most of the people in this country.

Day 10: The Mother of All Meaning

To get any insight at all into what Jesus’ childhood and upbringing were like, you have to do something that sometimes makes Protestants uncomfortable: study Mary.

Day 9: God’s Dilemma Yule Blog
Day 9: God’s Dilemma

The flawed human race, trapped in a cycle of cascading pain and wrong, is what and who God is bound and determined to love; the question is, How can He do it?

Day 8: One for All

The Christmas story suggests that we can somehow try to be loyal members of our nations, our families, our tribes—and to reach out to the broader human community of which we are also a part.

Day 7: Meaning in 3-D

It is a terrible scandal, but there is no way to separate the Trinity from Christmas. God is One; God is Three; the baby Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity, come to earth to save sinners and open the door to a new kind of relationship between human beings and God

Day 6: Personal Meaning - The Yule Blog
Day 6: Personal Meaning

Whether or not we believe in God, we want to do something real with our lives. We have one itch that mere scratching won’t fix, and that is the itch to understand what life is all about and to live meaningfully by the measures that really count.

Day 5: Meaning of Christmas - Yule Blog
Day 5: The Meaning of Christmas

Why do Christians and so many other people believe in an invisible Ruler and Creator of the universe—and then how does the Christian idea of God differ from the others?

Day 4: The Hinge of Fate - Holy Innocents’ Day
Day 4: The Hinge of Fate

Today, the third day after the orgiastic opening of the presents beneath the tree, is also the day that the traditional liturgical calendar tries to slap us into serious reflection on the meaning of the event, jolting us out of our turkey comas and eggnog overdoses with an unforgettably grim story.