Culture is what the heart is oriented to. What the heart is oriented to is what it loves. And what one loves will become the cornerstone of culture. And the heart, love, is a major theme in “Beowulf.” “There was song, and the voices of men gathered together before the leader of the host of [...]
Plato was a moralist. An ethicist. He was concerned with the primacy of action, of engagement, in a world that was deeply iconoclastic, barbarous, and savage. Love of wisdom allows for the creation of that space where ethical and loving life is possible. Plato’s Symposium is one of the most iconic works of literature in [...]
The mythic theme of descent to the underworld is virtually universal. The hero journeys to the underworld to confront the monster, then returns with the prize. That the hero must go down into the depths to battle the dark forces seems written into the very fabric of human psychology. During a vacation to Belize a [...]
C.S. Lewis’ famous conversation with Hugo Dyson and J.R.R. Tolkien, allowed him, for the first time in his life, to see that Christianity expresses not just myth, but true myth, something profoundly real, “a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened.” As [...]
Myth connects us to the deepest truths and dynamics of human experience, and it does so through the gift of imagination and catharsis. As we identify with the hero, we experience what he goes through. We share not only his thoughts, but also his emotions. Heart speaks to heart. Some time ago my wife sighed [...]
Christians invented the classical curriculum; it is as much part of the broader Western inheritance as it is specifically part of the Christian inheritance. Why study old books? How do dusty old books written by dead men and women thousands of years ago grow my faith? Such can be common thoughts when the Christian is [...]
The storytelling of a tribe gives each member a common remote past, communal heroes to emulate, shared social rules, and an answer to “Who am I?” Editor’s Note: This essay is part of a series dedicated to Senior Contributor Dr. Eva Brann of St. John’s College, Annapolis, in the year of her 90th birthday. The [...]
For the ancient myth-maker, there is something at the heart of all of human events that is worth preserving, something marvelous and worthy of renown, even if the account is not entirely true to life… The second-century satirist, Lucian of Samosata, makes the following inflammatory statement in his True History: [Historical accounts] are intended to have [...]
What shall we make of filmmakers who twist history for propaganda purposes? In an extreme way, they are doing what all historians do: They are not only recording history, they are also interpreting it—and can history be done without interpreting the facts?… Some time ago I watched a fascinating documentary on the assassination of President [...]
Both the Boy Scouts of America announcement and the #metoo phenomenon indicate a cultural problem: We have difficulty understanding the role distinctions play in our interactions with one another… “The most portentous general event of our time is the steady obliteration of those distinctions which create society.”[1] Richard Weaver penned these words in his 1948 book, Ideas [...]
The tragedy is not that the Russian Revolution is being forgotten; it’s that it is being remembered in the wrong way. It is being seen through rose-coloured spectacles, its grim reality being smothered in layers of romantic myth… This month is the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution, one of the most important moments in modern [...]
A democratic society requires an informed base of voters making political judgments on the basis of commonly accepted information. When reliable authorities no longer hold sway, unscrupulous authoritarians can step in to fill the void… “We have a risk of getting to a place where we don’t have shared public facts. A republic will not [...]
We can approach the miracles and mysteries of the Bible, accepting the possibility of their essential historicity while allowing for elaboration, exaggeration, and the misunderstandings of the pre-scientific mind. I have had a terrific time researching and writing my new book The Mystery of the Magi—The Quest for the True Identity of the Three Wise [...]
The perennial moral that Wonder Woman learns is that evil, and the war which is one of its manifestations, can never be finally destroyed in human history… It’s been many years since I’ve been in the habit of watching films. It’s not because I’ve turned my back on the motion picture as an art form; [...]