About Robert Stacey

Dr. Robert D. Stacey is Provost of The Saint Constantine School. He was Associate Provost, and the first Dean of the Honors College, at Houston Baptist University. Dr. Stacey has also served as Associate Professor in Regent University’s Robertson School of Government and as founding Chairman of the Department of Government at Patrick Henry College. He is the author of Sir William Blackstone and the Common Law: Blackstone's Legacy to America.

The Danger of Safety First

By |2019-05-16T11:20:46-05:00August 9th, 2018|Categories: Culture, Education|

No matter what you do, no matter what precautions you take, you could always be a little safer. In fact, we seem to live in a culture that values safety above nearly everything else. It is practically our obsession... There is an old adage that goes, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is [...]

“The Brothers Karamazov” and the Power of Memory

By |2020-06-12T10:21:09-05:00August 3rd, 2018|Categories: Baseball, Family, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Great Books, Literature|

Strong memories—of good times, of challenges met, of shaping experiences commonly shared—are the critical foundation of a good and meaningful life, particularly if you are young. Cherished memories of days passed can spur us on, can exhort us, and can motivate us when our own days seem dark and unendurable. On my desk sits a [...]

Finding Your “Why”

By |2018-07-07T15:50:14-05:00July 7th, 2018|Categories: Christianity, Classics, Education, Great Books, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning|

What enabled men like Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas to discover their “why” in ages past can still transform young men and women today… Over the years, I have discovered that nearly every time I come across an especially pithy, insightful, beautifully-expressed quotation, it seems to be attributable either to Winston Churchill or Mark Twain. Recently, [...]

The Commodification of Education

By |2018-05-04T13:32:04-05:00May 3rd, 2018|Categories: Culture, Education|

Historically, higher education was something quite different from what it is today. Colleges and universities formed communities, communities whose members were not just commodities and data points but dignified human beings who benefitted richly from their experience together… A question for parents and others who care about students: Do you think of your children as “commodities” [...]

The Liberal Arts vs. Progressive Education

By |2019-03-28T11:44:05-05:00April 26th, 2018|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Humanities, Liberal Arts|

Search the web and you will find any number of lofty “purposes of education:” Education enables us to develop to the fullest. Education cultivates the human mind with values and principles. Education teaches us to think and analyze the world. And many more… But even those vapid platitudes greatly exceed the reality of modern American [...]

Russell Kirk and the Moral Imagination

By |2021-04-29T13:00:35-05:00April 16th, 2018|Categories: Culture, Imagination, Moral Imagination, Russell Kirk, The Imaginative Conservative, Timeless Essays|

The “moral imagination” goes beyond our personal, individual experiences to help us fathom the depths of human dignity in light of God’s creation… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Robert Stacey as he explores the moral imagination, as understood by Russell Kirk, and it’s role in rolling [...]

Anne Bradstreet & the Puritan Influence on America

By |2020-03-19T16:31:43-05:00August 12th, 2016|Categories: American Republic, Christianity, Featured, Poetry|

In her roles as mother, teacher, and poet, Anne Bradstreet emerged as a chief voice of a remarkable generation that exercised lasting influence over the American colonies and later over the American Republic. In June 1630, an eighteen-year-old woman aboard a ship called the Arbella listened with her shipmates to a series of sermons by [...]

Understanding Russell Kirk: A Bold, New Biography

By |2021-05-10T19:44:40-05:00November 2nd, 2015|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Conservatism, Featured, Roots of American Order, Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind|

A few years ago I had the honor and pleasure of visiting Piety Hill, the familial home of Russell Amos Kirk and his wife Annette in Mecosta, Michigan. The feelings that sprang up in me as I stepped onto the walkway and approached the house were similar to those one might experience when approaching a [...]

Russell Kirk and the Moral Imagination

By |2015-11-02T07:39:12-06:00November 6th, 2013|Categories: Moral Imagination, Russell Kirk|

In November 2013 my students and I had the honor of a visit from Annette Kirk, widow of Russell Kirk. Mrs. Kirk led us in a discussion of her husband’s classic essay “The Moral Imagination.”  The term moral imagination actually comes from Edmund Burke, the 18th century author of Reflections on the Revolution in France and father of modern conservatism. Burke believed that [...]

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