It is easy to understand why skeptical New Testament scholars have relegated the magi from Matthew’s gospel to the realm of fantasy. Were they fanciful figures from the imagination of Matthew, or historical figures who existed at the time of Christ’s birth? Every good fantasy story needs a magician. Dorothy encounters the Wizard of Oz. [...]
Myth, J.R.R. Tolkien thought, can convey the sort of profound truth that is intransigent to description or analysis in terms of facts and figures. But, Tolkien admitted, myth can be dangerous if it remains pagan. Therefore, one must sanctify it. To enter faerie—that is, a sacramental and liturgical understanding of creation—is to open oneself to [...]
The Miracle of the Bells doesn’t claim to be great literature, but it is a richly-drawn story about faith and Hollywood, a time capsule of a bygone era that retains its inspirational charm. The Miracle of the Bells by Russell Janney (510 pages, Forgotten Books, 1946) Back in 1947 it was possible for a Catholic novel to [...]
If orthodox believers in churches and schools do not take upon themselves the responsibility of passing down the deposit of Christian art that has been entrusted to us, the next generation will grow up with little to no knowledge of, or gratitude for, the images by which the Christian worldview captivated the heart, soul, and [...]
It is insufficient to say that Ebenezer Scrooge is greedy. Scrooge believes that in his private life no one can make claims on his substance or time. He the kind of man who understands life to reduce to contracts. In September 1843, Charles Dickens started writing his little book, A Christmas Carol, one of very [...]
Sigrid Undset’s writing takes its place as one of the truly remarkable phenomena in the literature of the twentieth century. She is, wrote a Swedish critic in 1927, the year before she received the Nobel Prize, one of the very few contemporary authors of whom one may well use the adjective “great.” That is no [...]
Pick up a Jane Austen novel, and you will discover that behind the long gowns and country dances, people in her era struggled with the same weaknesses we struggle with today. Well-written stories like Austen’s bring to life the human drama that is played out in every age, in every heart. I’ve been reading Jane [...]
With a seemingly (and thankfully) endless supply of books about J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis flowing out from every conceivable press, it is easy to overlook some hidden gems. To assist Imaginative Conservative readers with their Christmas book shopping, I have highlighted below some books about Lewis and/or Tolkien that have been published over the [...]
When we look at a painting and see it only as scratches of pigment upon a canvas, we miss the big picture. When we look at what seems like chaos in our lives, we see ourselves as chaos. But when we see it all as a pattern, as a design, as God working—then we see ourselves [...]
The scholarship of Lee Congdon’s “Solzhenitsyn: The Historical-Spiritual Destinies of Russia and the West” is sound, demonstrating a breadth of knowledge and a depth of understanding of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s worldview. Solzhenitsyn: The Historical-Spiritual Destinies of Russia and the West by Lee Congdon (164 pages, Northern Illinois University Press, 2017) This December will mark the centenary of [...]
Josef Weiger is called, as are not many, to speak of Mary—to speak of her from the depths of his heart, knowing well her greatness to be unique. He is called to speak of her in that sober recollection of Christian Truth which, as St. Teresa demands, shall picture our Lady’s life only as it [...]
Reconsidered, some classic works of the Great War challenge our customary apprehension of the literature of this period and prompt fresh thinking about these writings. The war and the widespread disruptions of the years following it stirred up questions about meaning and value, about ties between the past and the future, about the mystery and [...]
Ours is a restless, noisy, superficial world terrified by silence, enthralled with politics, disdainful of interiority. The modern secular person looks out, perhaps even with pride, at its bleak utilitarian contours, blinking, yet slouching towards metaphysics. But the Catholic humanist, remembering with a certain grateful awe Gerard Manley Hopkins’ insight that "the world is charged [...]
In "The Conservative Mind," Russell Kirk, the father of American modern conservatism, said plainly that America is conservative or nothing, that America is European or nothing, and that conservative ‘European’ America is the only root of and hope for America itself. At 70, Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind is a young book. That work can [...]