Saint Augustine was the first Christian to offer a comprehensive Philosophy of History, which the Russian Orthodox writer Nicholas Berdyaev called nothing short of “ingenious.”[1] One of his greatest accomplishments was the sanctification of Plato’s understanding of the two realms: the perfect Celestial Kingdom and the corrupt copy. One finds this tension and conflict between [...]
For a thousand years, liberal education shaped the moral imagination of succeeding generations, almost unaware that it was freeing them from the coercive obsessions of their political masters. Reading classics like Anne of Green Gables, Farmer Boy, or To Kill a Mockingbird, some parents meditate on the adolescents portrayed—teenagers eager to master the virtues of [...]
The ultimate job of the teacher is to help orient students to and deepen their intimacy with reality itself. And the indispensable condition for a teacher being able to do this is not expertise, experience, knowledge, or pedagogical technique, however important these are, but literally being in love with the good. How do we enable [...]
I had not seen my former student, Adam, for a decade or so after his graduation from Hillsdale College when I ran into him and his young family at the supermarket. "You once asked me" he said, "for what purpose was the soul of man made. I had little in the way of an answer [...]
Christian higher education is in just as much of a crisis as the rest of the field. The smaller Christian schools are going to have to figure out what differentiates them from the rest of the competition. In most cases, their survival will require a return to the sources of the faith in which the [...]
For the classical educator, there are many educational goods to be achieved from reading Plato’s "Republic" with students because it is a dialogue that invites us to wonder about the most important questions humans can possibly ask: What is Reality? What is the Good? Does it exist? Can we know it? Why should we care? [...]
Charlie Kirk believed that America’s myths were both truths and facts worth cherishing. The story of America, he insisted, was not original sin without redemption, but sin and redemption together—the kind of story that could inspire loyalty, sacrifice, and renewal. Eventually, he would sacrifice himself for it. England could have been thrown into the cauldron [...]
Why should an adult take time out of his busy schedule to learn classical languages? Latin and ancient Greek unlock the cultural heritage of the West. When it comes to ancient languages, many people seem to believe that there is an incredibly small window of opportunity for learning. I encounter this belief frequently, since I [...]
We modern defenders of the liberal arts have to choose between Socrates’ vision and Cicero’s vision: Are we citizens of a particular soil and a particular place, or are we connected—across time and space—to all good men and God? A few weeks ago, I had the grand privilege of attending a Liberty Fund conference on [...]
What happened? How did institutions of higher education founded with such clear-eyed Christian missions, centered on moral and academic flourishing, go so far astray? There was once a time when religiously affiliated liberal-arts institutions were just that: havens of the time-honored liberal-arts tradition that sought to shape both students’ minds and hearts in accordance with [...]
The disastrous and destructive consequences of reductionist and relativistic education can be seen in multifarious ways, all of which are made manifest in the decay and decomposition of the modern West. We are no longer able to think outside of narcissistic or ideological boxes; we are no longer able to love self-sacrificially. The following is [...]
Poetry offers a unique antidote to the superficiality that dominates American culture. Poetry calls us back to tradition and calls us out of the shallows into the deeper water of human experience. It draws us toward transcendence. It is tempting to decry our age as the worst of times. Anyone who has studied history, however, [...]
The world needs young men who will devote their great energy to meaningful work, who will not follow a whining culture, who will stand out, stand up, and work hard. If you want a meaningful, worthwhile life, you must work hard. This is true for anyone, though my focus here is young men. Our culture [...]
In the long term, the hope is for the Gregory the Great Institute to become a major contributor to the “great conversation,” bringing the wisdom of Christendom to Canada’s beleaguered and floundering culture. We live in exciting times. As a native-born Englishman, I rejoice at the news that St. John Henry Newman is soon to [...]