About Barbara J. Elliott

Barbara J. Elliott is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. She is Scholar-in-Residence and Assistant Professor in the Honors College of Houston Christian University and a Fellow of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. Professor Elliott is the President of the Center for Cultural Renewal, and the founder of the WorkFaith Connection. She is the author of five books, including Street Saints: Renewing America’s Cities. She received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights from the President of the United States in 2001. As an American journalist based in Germany during the Cold War, she interviewed those who risked their freedom and their lives to resist Communism resulting in her book Candles Behind the Wall: Heroes of the Peaceful Revolution that Shattered Communism.

Houston’s Heart and Harvey’s Heroes

By |2020-03-27T15:43:12-05:00September 13th, 2017|Categories: Christianity, Civil Society, Community, Compassion, Religion|

The floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey washed away the dividing lines of race, religion, and class, revealing character and the basic decency at the core of what it means to be human. What makes Houston’s heart beat most truly is faith in God… Hurricane Harvey revealed the huge heart of Houston through the biggest natural disaster [...]

Hip-Hop Hamilton

By |2019-11-21T15:30:13-06:00July 27th, 2016|Categories: Alexander Hamilton, Audio/Video, Barbara J. Elliott, Featured, Music|

The musical Hamilton is star-spangled patriotic and worthy of attention, even though hip-hop may not be the favorite musical genre of most Imaginative Conservatives. Why? Intelligence finds the answer to a question, but genius answers a question no one else has thought to ask. The genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda leapt across three centuries to answer [...]

Conservative Credo

By |2021-07-23T08:08:02-05:00October 12th, 2015|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Conservatism, Featured, Love, Timeless Essays, Truth|

Conservatism seeks the Truth that has emerged over time, drawing from the deep wellsprings of human experience, and builds anew on foundations that have withstood the tests of time. It fosters order and the flourishing of human beings as they live in relationship with one another. We are united in the eternal contract between the [...]

Why Did the Berlin Wall Fall?

By |2019-11-10T22:51:20-06:00November 9th, 2014|Categories: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Barbara J. Elliott, Communism, Europe, Poland, Russia|

The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain seemed to be permanent fixtures of the political landscape of Europe after 1961. But to everyone’s surprise, the Berlin Wall opened on November 9, 1989. This stunning event triggered a chain reaction throughout Eastern Europe, accelerating a process that had begun a decade earlier. Using a little poetic [...]

What is Happiness? Aristotle vs. Pop Music

By |2022-08-02T12:35:28-05:00June 18th, 2014|Categories: Aristotle, Audio/Video, Barbara J. Elliott, Classics, Culture, Happiness, Music|

Is happiness rooted in pleasure, as many pop songs assert? Or does happiness stem from wealth, honor, wisdom, or political power? Aristotle contends that true happiness depends on a certain kind of understanding of the mind and soul to correctly apprehend what is true. The song “Happy” by Pharrell Williams has gone viral, topping the [...]

Want Affordable Health Care? Try These Tantalizing Options

By |2013-11-01T03:21:55-05:00October 29th, 2013|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Politics|

After changing health insurance providers and having difficulty getting prescriptions filled, I was getting testy. Very testy. Then I read that the new national insurance program would be released on 35 floppy discs, and that did it. I knew there was no help coming from Washington any time soon. In a slow burn that waxed [...]

Germans Seize Homeschoolers in Outrageous Raid

By |2013-12-19T13:49:43-06:00September 4th, 2013|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Education, Family, Homeschooling|

Dirk and Petra Wunderlich and their four children,in 2012 with Mike Farris of the Home SchoolLegal Defense Association At 8 a.m. on August 29, as Dirk and Petra Wunderlich began the day’s homseschooling classes with their four children, a team of twenty armed special agents, social workers, and police with a battering ram [...]

Celestial Courtroom: America at the Judgment of the Nations

By |2018-10-05T10:38:48-05:00July 10th, 2013|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Barbara J. Elliott, Featured, Fiction, Secularism|

[Classified Top Secret, Embargo on Distribution] Through unnamed sources involved in the proceedings, these notes were smuggled out of the Celestial Courtroom, where the ongoing evaluation of the Nations takes place in Committee Hearings in preparation for the Final Judgment. St. Peter was the presiding Chairman, Senator Screwtape the first witness. St. Peter: We are [...]

Damsels in Distress: A Cultural Anti-Depressant

By |2021-12-22T09:29:42-06:00May 22nd, 2013|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Culture, Film, Modernity, Moral Imagination, Whit Stillman|

If you’re feeling depressed about the culture around you, Dr. Elliott has a prescription for you: one full dose of Whit Stillman’s most recent film, Damsels in Distress, followed by tap dancing. I am perfectly serious. This charming story unfolds with a group of quirky college girls on the campus of Seven Oaks, a fictitious Ivy [...]

Conservative Credo

By |2023-05-07T07:16:53-05:00April 25th, 2013|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Conservatism|Tags: |

Conservatism seeks the Truth that has emerged over time, drawing from the deep wellsprings of human experience, and builds anew on foundations that have withstood the tests of time. It fosters order and the flourishing of human beings as they live in relationship with one another. We are united in the eternal contract between the [...]

Imaginative Gifts for the Entire Family

By |2014-12-10T10:55:32-06:00December 12th, 2012|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Books, Christmas, Gifts for Imaginative Conservatives|

Imaginative conservatives read, pray, honor the past, build family memories, and do everything with wit, style and elegance. The gifts below have been lovingly picked for the entire family with that in mind. The perfect gift: Leather-bound books from Easton Press, with gold-leaf edges on the pages. They offer a complete set of the works of Shakespeare [...]

Anna Karenina: Aristocratic Life is All a Stage

By |2014-02-20T11:47:49-06:00December 7th, 2012|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Books, Culture, Film|

Anna Karenina is a lush, beautiful, stylized film about succumbing to sexual flame and the complicated relationships of infidelity that tear a beautiful woman apart. The themes of love, lust, and forgiveness are depicted in the opulence of aristocratic society in late 19th century tsarist Russia. If you are expecting an experience like Dr. Zhivago, forget it. This [...]

How do we Vote for the People who “Really Care”?

By |2013-12-19T15:56:05-06:00November 6th, 2012|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Faith, Politics|Tags: |

As Americans enter the voting booth today, we will be making a momentous decision for our nation. Whose vision will we embrace? Three groups of people are split, and they may very well determine the outcome: women, Hispanics, and Catholics. And the concern that drives many of them is “who really cares?” The people who [...]

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