Great literature does not pass away, nor does it lose its relevance, because, like the wise virgins of Scripture, it remains loyal to the Bridegroom and the unchanging truth that He teaches and the unchanging truth that He is. Like the saints, the Great Books are alive. Gertrud von le Fort's "The Wedding of Magdeburg" [...]
Quietism in all its different manifestations seemed to encourage the reformer’s belief that our own efforts are useless and even blasphemous. Its adherents were not only encouraged to do absolutely nothing in prayer, but to do nothing about temptations either, that could only be overcome with God’s grace. Miguel de Molinos Molinos, the [...]
Better than any historian, storyteller Gertrud von le Fort brings her unique genius for laying bare the human heart in making sense of and finding redemption amid the horror of human suffering. Is there a Catholic home in America that does not display an Infant of Prague watching over the family from the top of [...]
Five-hundred years on from the Protestant revolution and Christendom is not just dismantled, but in full apostasy. Can it be revived, and if so, how? St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), who was the greatest Christian philosopher of antiquity and certainly the one who exerted the deepest and most lasting influence, maintained that a Christian state is the only [...]
One of the most egregious examples of the dissemination of the false narrative of fake history is the bias and inaccuracy of the “official” history of England since the time of the Reformation. William Cobbett We live in an age when fake news is rampant. Yet fake news is nothing new. It’s been [...]
Several centuries before Edmund Burke, Thomas More warned against theorizing about the perfect society and advised statesmen to do their best with the form of government their people have passed on to them. Though he himself favored one form of government over another, he admitted that we rarely have the power to create the government [...]
C.S. Lewis wrote prophetically about the Abolition of Man. We are witnessing its literal fulfillment. If history unfolds in 500-year epochs, then we are on the cusp of a new epoch. What does it hold for humanity? I have not been the only one to recognize that the last five hundred years have been an [...]
John Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress” contains a shift away from institutional idealism and toward a separationist theology that revived the Theology of Calling. It is perhaps the finest work of English nonconformist literature since John Milton and remains unsurpassed more than three centuries later. Next to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, there is no greater representative [...]
John Calvin’s theology, as well as his influence on the civil government of Geneva, significantly influenced the founding of the United States. The Founding Fathers understood well the wisdom of Calvin’s teaching that original sin sometimes necessitated resisting tyrants and limiting the power of civil government, and were thus prepared when the time came to [...]
While the Reformation divided the Church, it must be said that it was brought on by her own inability and unwillingness to repent and turn to the Gospel. We can see some of the same trends today in our society and Church. As a conservative and a Catholic it is all too easy to look [...]
One of the biggest mistakes that a student of history can make is to confuse the so-called English “Reformation” with its namesake on the continent. Whereas the Protestant Reformation in Europe was animated by the genuine theological differences that separated those who followed Luther or Calvin from those who accepted the apostolic and ecclesial authority [...]
As the Christian faith of Americans continues to erode, Christians may well be labeled enemies of the state, and clergymen may again have to hide in secret spaces in order to avoid persecution. If you visit Oxburgh Hall in England you can tour one of the ancient country houses occupied without break since 1482 by one of [...]
A Catholic friend of mine is fond of referring to the Protestant Reformation as “the Deformation.” Well, perhaps. Certainly the Reformation in England was a deformation. Henry VIII’s stripping of the altars was not only a monumental act of iconoclastic vandalism, but the cultural revolution brought about by his break with Rome—which included the dissolution of [...]
One of the frustrating things about a visit to England is the persistence of Protestant propaganda about King Henry VIII and his daughter, Elizabeth I. During our recent pilgrimage with Joseph Pearce our fellow pilgrims noticed time and again how information boards and brochures portrayed Henry and Elizabeth in a positive light. Their splendid portraits [...]