The Yule Blog 2017-18

Walter Russell Mead, a Providence contributing editor, is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute. He is the author of numerous books, including Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. His next book, The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People will be published by Knopf in 2018.

Walter’s “Yuletide Blog” has been a Christmas tradition for many of his readers since he first published it over at The American Interest’s “Via Meadia” blog for the 2009-2010 Christmastide. This wonderful, if sometimes laid-aside, season in the Christian calendar runs from Christmas eve to epiphany (January 6th). Walter’s “Twelvetide” reflections have shepherded many into remembering not just the history but the meaning of Christmas and the yuletide season.

Providence is thrilled to become the new home for Walter’s Yule Blog. It is appropriate that we become so. As Walter writes, “Christianity is the living force behind American liberal ideology as well as American conservativism.” Providence understands that as we let go of the meaning of Christmas, we deracinate ourselves from our collective memory of Christendom, and thereby such virtues as “humility, forbearance, honesty, and tolerance begin to fade from our common life.” The loss of such Christian memory bodes ill for our republic, and what bodes ill for our republic bodes ill for the wide world.

May these yuletide reflections be a rock against such forgetfulness and a goad to the quickening of faith, hope, and love—both at home and far abroad. Merry Christmas!