Walter Russell Mead’s Yule Blog has been a Christmas tradition since The American Interest’s “Via Meadia” blog first published it for the 2009–10 Christmastide. This wonderful, if sometimes laid-aside, season in the Christian calendar runs from Christmas Eve to Epiphany (January 6). Mead’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 host the Yule Blog. Such excitement is appropriate. 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 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!
The manger scene these days really is the face of Christmas for most people and, perhaps not surprisingly, it is one of the aspects of the season that keeps causing trouble.
Walter Russell MeadDecember 25, 2021
My generation and the generation before us inherited an enormous wealth of spiritual capital from a society shaped by hundreds of years of deep religious faith and engagement. Our environment was shaped by that wealth in ways that many of us did not understand; we took it for granted.
Walter Russell MeadDecember 24, 2021
In this Advent Special of the Foreign Policy ProvCast, Mark Melton speaks with Walter Russell Mead about his annual Yule Blog series, which begins on Christmas Eve and runs through Epiphany on January 6.
Walter Russell Mead & Mark MeltonDecember 21, 2020
