Because of intense fear, we refuse to acknowledge that nothing in this world is permanent, that everything perishes, that soon we will be no more. Lodged within every human heart is the blind hope that death comes to others, not to us... Prometheus was the one Olympian god to rebel against Zeus’ plan to wipe [...]
René Girard gave the intellectual universe a way of seeing old truths in a new way and new truths through an old lens. As a result, his work has already been hugely influential in a range of disciplines, both academic and cultural… Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard by Cynthia L. Haven (346 [...]
No good Muslim, unless he is trying to deceive us, has any doubt that Allah is exactly as he is described in the Koran... Most people know that the Quran (Qur’an, Koran) is the holy book of the Muslim religion, hence of about a fifth of the world’s population. But knowing this much, we still must [...]
The fact is that theology—real theology, the study of God—which should be foundational in church liturgy and in far more sermons than it is today, has lost its popularity, replaced by an emphasis on evangelism... In the human quest for beauty, goodness, and truth, theology has taken a back seat. Our modern church buildings, both [...]
The Secret Battle of Ideas about God asks five simple questions that cut to the heart of what it means to be human: Am I loved? Why do I hurt? Does my life have meaning? Why can’t we just get along? Is there any hope for the world? The Secret Battle of Ideas about God: Overcoming [...]
Mass is not supposed to make me comfortable—it’s supposed to make me more holy… After thirty-five years as a liturgical musician, it’s amazing how little I really know about the liturgical music of the Roman Rite. Then again, what should I expect when my earliest memories of music at Mass tend to involve now-forgotten attempts to make [...]
In freeing the student in his studies and liberating man socially through education and through every sort of technique and social institution, John Dewey remains an interesting and commanding philosopher… We will first mention decisive influences on John Dewey and then give a résumé of his philosophy of education. It is only within such a [...]
The imagination is a gift from God, given in His own image, to conceive of a Glorious Reality that does exist, that we cannot yet fully see. Why is a sentence from C.S. Lewis delightful while an equally true statement by another, ordinary writer, is not? “I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun [...]
“All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste.” Editor’s Note: In The Great Divorce C.S. Lewis [...]
"The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him. It is equally important to men to know both these points; and it is equally dangerous for man to know God without [...]
True science is a great thing, for it honors God’s gifts to us, not the least of which is the intellect. Bill Nye and the Marchers for Science, however, are not really promoting science, but a utopian political ideology… In a public spectacle reminiscent of an episode of The Twilight Zone, on this past “Earth [...]
While ushering their congregations through a period of personal reflection and preparation, clergy have in the occasion of the sermon the opportunity to aid in the rediscovery of the church’s language, both as God’s medium of judgment and as his enduring, self-revelatory vehicle to the world… For clergy preparing for their flocks a meaning-rich Holy [...]
With the liturgy, we encounter the God who has made us and who has given us the liturgy as the form and the consummation of our praise. The liturgy sweeps us out of ourselves... Anyone coming upon Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Liturgy and Personality (Hildebrand Press), who thinks it will be a manual on how to imbue the [...]
Readers of my earlier essay, “Defending Tolkien from the Cloak-and-Dagger Priest,” will know something of the controversy surrounding the attacks on Tolkien by an anonymous priest, whom I will henceforth refer to as Father X. Since, in that essay, I only addressed Father X’s inadequate understanding of allegory and myth, I would like to look [...]