Together, the corrupting sins of pride and envy destroyed the democracies of ancient Athens and Rome. But what lies at the root of these two greatest of sins? And is there any remedy or antidote that can cure us, and our society, once we give way to them? Fr. Dwight Longenecker’s “Immortal Combat” offers [...]
We must respect the difficulty and danger of the jobs of those who protect us and stop willfully blinding ourselves to the unpleasant realities around us. Let us defend, support, and celebrate our police and our military; without them, our world would be a far more perilous place. This semester, I am happily exercising [...]
What I have found among young evangelicals is a deep level of dissatisfaction at the church’s lack of spiritual power. I can’t emphasize enough how galvanizing a vision of spiritual warfare can be for millennials, in the positive sense of realigning the church as a center of resistance to dark forces. As an English [...]
Playwright David Lane has graced the Christian community with a formal, blank-verse play that takes up the war of gods and demons. “Dido: The Tragedy of a Woman” retells the tragic tale of the “Aeneid,” but with some dramatic plot twists that allow it to function both as a timeless meditation on the universal issues [...]
Keep climbing, my friends of the future; though the ideal elude you, do not give up on the journey. Others before you have stuck to the path and found their way out of the Cave and into the glorious light of the Beatific Vision. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other [...]
There is perhaps no spell stronger or more lasting than self-delusion. Who among us cannot see the hypocrisy in others; how few of us can see the hypocrisy in ourselves. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages had been given [...]
Though fate is strong, there is a First Mover who transcends the revolutions of Fortune’s Wheel. In our world of perpetual change, all is in flux; even the mightiest tree will someday fall and the broadest river turn to dust. Yet the First Cause rises above these temporal twists and turns. Author’s Introduction: Imagine [...]
True pilgrimage is a communal undertaking: a temporary society on the move. Rather than turn inward in search of enlightenment, turn outward toward your companions and learn to see the world through their eyes. Learn to get along with people whose passions, beliefs, and strategies for survival are radically different from your own. Author’s Introduction: [...]
The mature man is the one who not only honors vows and oaths, but who, when he breaks them, confesses his crime, feels shame for his failure, and seeks to make right what he has violated. Shrugging off one’s moral failings, acting as if they don’t matter, is not a sign of maturity but an [...]
I know that many in your age have ceased to believe in the devil, but the evil of which I speak is a real thing. No, it is not real in the sense that goodness is real; evil, after all, is not a positive thing but a perversion and corruption of the good. Still, it [...]
Beowulf was not a revolutionary but a guardian of all that is good and sacred, not a killer in love with blood and the cries of men but a protector of that which is right and proper. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, Rome, [...]
To achieve the Beatific Vision of Plato and his pre-Christian heirs is to move to a place of absolute serenity, removed from the passions and emotions of our world. That is not what I encountered in paradise. Far from a place of stoic calm, heaven overflowed with ecstasy and jubilation. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if [...]
Rather than seek to create an artificial equality that violates God’s diversity of gifts, find your own unique place in the celestial hierarchy. And once you find your assigned part, take pride in it, without envying those above you in the hierarchy or condescending to those below. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, [...]
Too many of your theologians and preachers have rejected an aspect of God that is made clear in the scriptures: our God is a jealous God. And you’ve rejected it, not because you have disproved it, but because you are embarrassed by it. You simply cannot imagine that God could have anything in common with [...]