Kevin Wells pleads for the recovering of a Roman Catholic priesthood steeped in the muscular Christianity of bygone days. Invoking especially the memories of his murdered monsignor-uncle, he makes a fervent layman’s appeal for priests to abandon the niceness and complacency that have contributed to the recent woes of the church. The Priests We Need [...]
In “The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders,” Daniel Defoe relates the life story of an English adventuress and her exploits, portraying Moll’s life in such authentic detail that the readers can easily see themselves in her position. However, while reading, we must keep in mind a question: Is Moll’s story a [...]
The prestige of studying classical languages like Latin and Greek is greatly eroded today. This is no mystery; but how did we get to this point? Linguist Nicholas Ostler, in his book Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin, chronicles how Latin remained the one constant during the growth of Western culture. The claims he [...]
In a time of year when lists abound, I wonder why lists work so well. So many of us make to-do lists for the day, week, or month. These are often chores, things that must get done. We might have to read for work, to research, comment, or write. We should or could read [...]
John Stubbs should be commended for his biography of the great Anglo-Irish satirist and clergyman. The work is not merely a biography; it is also an account that details the turbulence of the times in which Jonathan Swift lived, painting lively portraits of the many figures and personalities with whom he interacted. Jonathan Swift: The [...]
The refusal to consider the possibility that the Magi were historical figures and not mythical magicians reflects the bias of both modernists and conservative believers. For Saint Matthew’s Gospel to actually be true rocks both their boats. My friend Sir Colin Humphreys wrote a book some time ago called The Miracles of Exodus. Sir [...]
In his new book, “How to Keep From Losing Your Mind,” Deal W. Hudson sets out to not merely defend—in a traditional and philosophical sense—Western thought but also to share the beauty of culture and the approach he took as he was writing, namely that of “a mounting sense of joy.” How to Keep [...]
The moral imagination of E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s anthropology discerned great value in the cultures he studied, and he spoke out against the destruction of that value. By doing so he exhibited the finest elements of his own particular Western cultural inheritance, as a Christian, English gentleman, who was later, and appropriately, knighted. Evans-Pritchard’s The Sanusi [...]
Though counter-globalist, Cardinal Robert Sarah’s “The Day Is Now Far Spent” is not anti-Western, but is an emphatic rejection of liberal anthropology—which strikes him as blasphemous, positing a decontextualized individual, one who needs neither family nor neighbor nor even God Almighty. The Day Is Now Far Spent, by Cardinal Robert Sarah (385 pages, Ignatius [...]
Michael Naughton’s new book, “Getting Work Right,” is a wonderful invitation to share a vision of work that goes beyond resume obsession or Thank-God-It’s-Friday attitudes. It’s an invitation to Thank God It’s Sunday and keep thanking all week long. Getting Work Right: Labor and Leisure in a Fragmented World, by Michael J. Naughton (200 [...]
Though it would not see publication until August 1945, C.S. Lewis finished his greatest novel, That Hideous Strength, on Christmas Eve, 1943. In terms of depth, style, and audacity, That Hideous Strength is superior to its closest dystopian rivals, Brave New World and 1984. Its characters are far more realistic, and the setting—far from [...]
Greek myths have had an unbroken authority over the imagination of the West, and among them the Antigone legend is paramount in both shaping and expressing the moral constitution of Western humanity. Antigones, by George Steiner (Clarendon Press, 1984; Oxford Paperback, 1986; 328 pages) Anyone who has reread the Antigone about as often as is [...]
Princeton University Press’s most recent volume, “How to Think About God,” is a handbook of paganism, an antique “Mere Christianity.” While none of its wisdom will get you to Heaven, it will certainly help you lead a better and more fulfilling life here and now. Over the last several years, Princeton University Press has [...]
When we think of writers associated with Christmas, Dickens would no doubt come to mind, as, perhaps, would Chesterton. It is unlikely, however, that the name of Tolkien would spring to mind. In Tolkien’s works, such as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, set in Middle-earth, there is no place [...]