The continued appeal of Jane Austen’s work is in the true simplicity and humility hidden within the complex, deceitful web of human pride and prejudice… Taking some entertainment time, we sat down last week to watch again the classic BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth) was just as pompous [...]
The experience of nostalgia is a feeling of beauty’s remoteness, but only because it is so far in the future. It is hope. I went for a long walk in Oxford the other night. The city, of course, is always enchanting, but in early summer and at night, it is so the most. When summer [...]
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back Guilty of dust and sin. […]
Other boys wanted to be football or basketball stars, millionaires, politicians, engineers, businessmen, lawyers, and doctors. My aim was to be an Anglican country parson. T.S. Eliot and George Herbert were my role models… From time to time, I am invited to speak to groups who want to hear my conversion story. The audiences are always [...]
England is fallen but is nonetheless made in God’s image, insofar as the manifestations of her historical faith are a reflection of her love for Christ and of Christ’s love for her, and insofar as the beauty of her landscape is “charged with the grandeur of God”… Editor’s Note: Imaginative Conservative Senior Contributor Joseph Pearce [...]
C.S. Lewis would not allow disagreement to become personal. He could always distinguish the man from the man’s opinion, and he knew the difference between an argument and a quarrel. Truth was ultimately at stake, and truth mattered to him… As a fellow of one of the colleges at the University of Oxford, I have [...]
Although Hilaire Belloc and J.R.R. Tolkien had much in common, not least of which was their shared and impassioned Catholicism, it is intriguing that they should differ so profoundly on the importance of the Anglo-Saxons. Picture the scene. An expectant audience, which includes the great Catholic writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, awaits the arrival of another great [...]
Be careful what you read—it may change you, for better or worse. In the case of Joseph Pearce, his early reading made him a violent white supremacist. It also landed him in jail. While there, he continued to read; only this time, he read the works of G.K. Chesterton. It was not so much that [...]
Modern England is so secular in her orientation and so narcissistic in her hedonism that she treats her own heritage with scornful and supercilious neglect. This was made painfully clear to me this January when I returned to my native land to film a documentary on the great Catholic poet, Francis Thompson. Described by Chesterton [...]
The roaring success of the English television drama Downton Abbey had little to do with the grand house, the sumptuous costumes, the superb cast and intricately intriguing storyline. Having just finished watching the final season, it occurred to me that the series’s success has everything to do with fairytales. […]
By now, countless articles have been written on Brexit. But what implications does Brexit have for the United States? In answering this question, I do not want to focus on whether Brexit was a good idea or not. It’s far too soon to tell. Instead, I will consider whether the decision procedure for Brexit—the referendum—was [...]
If Marshall McLuhan were around today to comment on the results of Britain’s referendum about whether to “Remain” or to “Leave” the European Union, no doubt he would offer comments that would be surprising and puzzling. Nevertheless, it is the unexpected quality of McLuhan’s probing remarks (he himself liked to designate his aphorisms with the [...]
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 [...]
Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home For lack of money, and it is all right. Places they guarded, or kept orderly, Must guard themselves, and keep themselves orderly. We want the money for ourselves at home Instead of working. And this is all right. It’s hard to say who wanted it [...]