About John Horvat

John Horvat II is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative and a scholar, researcher, educator, international speaker, and author of the book Return to Order, as well as the author of hundreds of published essays. He lives in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, where he is the vice president of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.

Three Things That Make This Election Cycle Surreal

By |2024-09-08T17:53:45-05:00September 8th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, John Horvat, Politics, Religion|

What makes this election year so strange is a greater shift away from reality. The election seems like a show, not a civic duty. Candidates are more like actors than future public servants. It all seems so staged. Everything is choreographed to improve poll numbers and ignore issues. However, the main reason things are surreal [...]

Why Are the Crown Jewel Carmelite Convents Failing?

By |2024-08-12T14:59:34-05:00August 12th, 2024|Categories: Catholicism, John Horvat|

Among the religious orders dedicated to the contemplative life, the Carmelites have a special role. Carmelite convents are found all over the world. They have given the Church countless saints and models. Many Carmelite convents are now in crisis because they have no vocations. The nuns are dying off. Convent after convent is closing. Each [...]

Why Everyone Needs the First Commandment

By |2024-07-22T19:52:42-05:00July 22nd, 2024|Categories: Christianity, Existence of God, John Horvat|

Most people don’t have a problem with some of the Ten Commandments. There are atheists, for example, who will admit that one should not kill, steal, or lie. Thus, posting those specific Commandments in public classrooms or buildings would pose no problem. The problems begin with the First and most important Commandment, which deals with [...]

What Comes After Liberalism?

By |2024-06-19T14:11:09-05:00June 19th, 2024|Categories: Christendom, Christianity, John Horvat, Liberalism|

In the name of liberation from authority, liberalism imposes an amoral, secular, and nonmetaphysical model on nations in which God has no official role. This model entered modernity without being voted upon or chosen by populations. It is an assumed mentality that all must adopt outwardly to be considered part of the modern world. Woe [...]

“Age of Revolutions”: An Exercise in Reading History Backward

By |2024-05-29T16:53:58-05:00May 29th, 2024|Categories: Books, Enlightenment, History, John Horvat, Progressivism, Revolution|

Fareed Zakaria’s book is a defense of liberalism in the European sense of a regime of limited government, free markets, rule of law, moral indifference, maximized freedom, and unending progress. He turns all those who support the conservative cause into resentful, racist individuals left behind by progress. Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 [...]

Intolerance Unmasked: The Persecution of Harrison Butker

By |2024-05-21T13:58:45-05:00May 21st, 2024|Categories: Catholicism, Christianity, John Horvat, Sports, Wokeism|

The god of sports has long bowed before the god of woke. Everything is allowed to the activists who promote bended knees, pride nights, and alternative national anthems. But, as the left's reaction to Harrison Butker's recent commencement speech shows, nothing is allowed for the God of Hosts. The controversy over Harrison Butker’s fiery commencement [...]

A Lady With a Hat Found Trouble in Paradise

By |2024-04-30T14:27:52-05:00April 30th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Community, John Horvat, Western Tradition|

As the plane landed, my fascinating conversation with the lady with the hat ended. It was like a window into a sector of the American public normally not engaged in the culture war. The incident gave me insight into what might be happening beneath the surface of the material paradises that dot the national landscape. [...]

Liberals and the Libel of “Christian Nationalism”

By |2024-03-07T18:56:33-06:00March 7th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Christianity, Civil Society, Civilization, Liberalism|

Christ gave His disciples the Divine Commission to go and teach all nations, baptizing them. Christians are called to change society—all society, every society. They pursue this goal with charity and zeal, respecting the free will of individuals. Wherever Christianity has gone, its charity has transformed nations and peoples. Whenever the extreme left is in [...]

The Emergence of the Home Chapel

By |2024-02-25T15:18:33-06:00February 25th, 2024|Categories: Architecture, Christianity|

By building a chapel, the owner is inviting God into the home. By making it the most beautiful room in the house, the person recognizes God's primary place in one's life. The chapel builders represent one of those paradoxes where people feel the emptiness of the postmodern world that promises everything and wishes to fill [...]

Why National Divorce Is a Horrible Idea

By |2024-02-16T14:41:09-06:00February 15th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, John Horvat|

America must turn to that family-centered, community-based society that is anchored in God and a morality based on His law. Now is the time to gather the nation around unifying principles, not shatter it into millions of individualistic shards. Some traditional-minded Americans use a horrible metaphor to describe an outcome they desire for the nation. [...]

Can Godless Leaders Represent the Godly?

By |2023-12-14T17:49:38-06:00December 14th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Government, John Horvat|

Recent elections in Holland, Sweden, Italy and Argentina have given victories to a new type of conservative leader based on a faulty premise. Some Christians hold that the only way to fight against godless and immoral times is with godless leaders who practice no established religion and follow no set rules. Only these outside mavericks [...]

Religion Without Consequences

By |2023-12-09T13:49:54-06:00December 9th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, John Horvat, Liberalism, Religion|

Consequential religion strikes fear in those who tragically have no faith. When they see that some believe firmly in a loving and Almighty God who takes an active role in worldly affairs, they sense the power of religion, and they suddenly become irrelevant. We live in times of inconsequential religion. That means most people do [...]

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