Walter Russell Mead

Walter Russell Mead

Walter Russell Mead is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, and the Distinguished Scholar in American Strategy and Statesmanship for the Hudson Institute. He previously served as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy for the Council on Foreign Relations. His works include God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World (2008), and he is the Global Views Columnist for the Wall Street Journal.

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Day 11: Sitting in Darkness, Blogging the Light - Yule Blog - Christmas - 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 - Virgin Mary - Christmas
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 - Sin Grace Love
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 - Yule Blog - Nations - Christmas
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 - Christmas - Trinity - Yule Blog
Day 7: Meaning in 3-D

It is a terrible scandal, but there is no way to separate the Trinity from Christmas.

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

For believers, the question isn’t why there are presents under the tree. It is whether the love around the family circle speaks of a larger reality and in some way reflects the meaning inherent in the universe as a whole, or whether that happy Christmas morning feeling is nothing more than the biologically conditioned response of a collection of primates in a kinship setting.

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.

Day 3: Born of a What??? - Virgin Mary - Yule Blog
Day 3: Born of a What???

Conventional manger scenes don’t show it, but besides the ox, the ass, the sheep, and the camels, there was another animal in the room at Christmas: an elephant. And the elephant in the room was the idea that Jesus’ mother was a virgin when He was born. A Yuletide blog that didn’t talk about the elephant wouldn’t be doing its job.

Day 2: Rolling the Credits - Yule Blog
Day 2: Rolling the Credits

As we start to look at this whole Christmas phenomenon, it makes sense to begin with the basics. The first questions any sensible person asks about Christmas are pretty straightforward: What event is this holiday supposed to commemorate, and do we know that it actually happened?