The Great His­to­rian of Cul­ture: Christo­pher Daw­son

By |2023-10-25T19:05:58-05:00October 25th, 2023|Categories: Books, Christian Humanism, Christopher Dawson, Timeless Essays|

"Christopher Dawson viewed the disintegration of Western culture as a far worse disaster than that of the fall of Rome," biographer Christina Scott writes. "For the one was material; the other would be a spiritual disaster which would strike directly at the moral foundations of our society and destroy not the outward form of civilization [...]

Let Them Be Born in Wonder

By |2023-11-09T10:32:52-06:00October 11th, 2023|Categories: Christian Humanism, Christianity, John Senior, Liberal Learning, Wyoming Catholic College|

We are made for the stars but rooted in the soil. We are made to seek spiritual realities, but we must use this world, this visible creation, to do so. How the brief life of a storied liberal arts program changed lives the world over. In 1967, at the age of forty-four, John Senior transferred [...]

St. Pius V and the Battle of Lepanto

By |2023-10-06T20:38:31-05:00October 6th, 2023|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christendom, Europe, G.K. Chesterton, Islam, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, War|

Pope Pius, who had done more than anyone to make the Christian victory at Lepanto possible, is said to have burst into tears when news of it reached him. They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, And the Pope has [...]

C.S. Lewis on Neutered Drones

By |2023-09-28T05:52:10-05:00September 27th, 2023|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Senior Contributors, Wokeism|

The liturgical imagery of the priest connects directly to our concepts and language about God. It does so because our concepts and language about God are necessarily personal. We are called to be in a person to person relationship with God—a relationship of intentional love, and as human beings we can only relate personally through [...]

A Hobbit’s Journey Home: Crossing the Atlantic and the Tiber

By |2023-09-18T17:05:48-05:00September 19th, 2023|Categories: Dwight Longenecker, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and the ways of God more strange and more beautiful than anything the mind of man can fathom. What else could explain Father Dwight Longenecker's journey from undergraduate at Bob Jones University, to Anglican country parson, to Catholic priest for the diocese of Charleston? At the conclusion of the [...]

A Hobbit’s Journey Home: Dreaming of the Shire

By |2023-09-19T17:34:31-05:00September 11th, 2023|Categories: Dwight Longenecker, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

Father Dwight Longenecker’s account of his own life’s adventure is subtitled “a somewhat religious odyssey”, indicating that his life, like all our lives, is a journey, or a pilgrimage, or a quest, the goal of which is, or should be, to get to heaven. “I am in fact a Hobbit in all but size,” wrote [...]

Tolkien’s “The Children of Húrin”

By |2023-09-10T12:53:29-05:00September 10th, 2023|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Fiction, Imagination, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Tolkien Series|

How does one account for J.R.R. Tolkien’s seeming ability to live inside of mythology? He read it, he translated it, and he absorbed it. After all these grand things, he rewrote it. Yet, no matter how deeply he delved into the profound and pervasive paganisms of pre-Christian cultures, he never lost his ability to baptize [...]

The Tragedy of Despair

By |2023-09-04T15:36:18-05:00September 5th, 2023|Categories: Evil, Hope, J.R.R. Tolkien, Western Civilization, Western Tradition|

My heart breaks for Tolkien's Denethor, whose life ended unnecessarily, as bitterness, anger, and hopelessness in the face of evil consumed him. Let our prayer be that, even as we observe the darkness at the doorstep of Western Civilization, we imaginative conservatives stand at our posts and look to the Heavenly Father as our protector. [...]

The Wisdom and Innocence of G.K. Chesterton

By |2023-09-10T09:03:04-05:00September 4th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

Against the reductionist nowhere man who cannot love his nowhere neighbour because he does not love his nowhere God, Chesterton presents us with the Everlasting Man, Jesus Christ, the personification of the good, the true and the beautiful, who is the incarnation of perfect wisdom and perfect innocence. My first book, Wisdom and Innocence: A [...]

Tolkien and Theology

By |2023-09-02T10:44:12-05:00September 2nd, 2023|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christianity, J.R.R. Tolkien, Senior Contributors|

While Tolkien never approached theology in a systematic or even quasi-systematic way, his statements on the subject—littered throughout his collected letters—read as a Catholic version of Heraclitus’ "Fragments" or a mythic version of St. Josemaria’s "The Way." They shed great light not only on Tolkien, but on us. Though C.S. Lewis will always and understandably [...]

Are We Becoming a Nation of Gollums?

By |2023-09-02T10:36:44-05:00September 2nd, 2023|Categories: Christian Humanism, Christianity, Evil, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Modernity, Senior Contributors|

Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives. Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our [...]

St. Augustine, Modernity, & the Recovery of True Education

By |2023-08-27T13:11:19-05:00August 27th, 2023|Categories: Bradley G. Green, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Featured, Liberal Learning, Modernity, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, Timeless Essays|

One of the most pressing tasks for contemporary Christians is the recovery and cultivation of the inextricable link between the Christian faith and the intellectual life. In order to engage in such reflection, we should explore the relationship of Christianity and the liberal arts, and in particular seek to draw from Augustine as we reflect [...]

Go to Top