Christians often emphasize not being “of” the world, but the command to be “in” the world is just as present in Christian tradition. We will certainly not be able to create a heaven on earth, but we are often able to put off the creation of little hells. Should Christians care about politics? Should they [...]
For those of us who believe in the claims of the Catholic Church but are disheartened by her sinking into chaos and corruption, what are we to do? Perhaps the beginning of an answer might be found in Flannery O’Connor’s evergreen observation that we do not so often suffer for the Church as from [...]
Christopher Tolkien, in “The Return of the Shadow,” breaks down J.R.R. Tolkien’s drafts of the sequel to “The Hobbit” into three phases. In the third phase, the situations around them do grow tellingly darker, with drastic implications for the story that could shake the foundations even of the Blessed Realm, the land of the [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien intended the new book, which would later develop into “The Lord of the Rings,” to be a simple sequel to “The Hobbit.” Yet somehow the sequel was growing more adult, and Tolkien admitted it reflected the “darkness of the present days” in the shadow of the Second World War. On September 21, [...]
As painful as it might be, it would be decorous to pay respects to the deceased victims of the late Justice Ginsburg—those whose lives were snuffed out in the womb due to her tireless defence of abortion. For the past two days, mourners have lined up outside the Supreme Court building in Washington DC to [...]
Does our modern body politic, like the human body, have a core? Obviously not. In fact, it seems fair to say that no one, culturally speaking, feels anything but disorientation and dislocation in this world of COVID and radical political division. Indeed, this election season rouses more dread of coming unrest, regardless of who wins, [...]
In seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency, the Marxists and anarchists of Antifa and other groups are doing the dirty work of the richest and most powerful people in the world. Regardless of whether or not they know that this is what they are doing, Antifa are the stormtroopers of global capitalism. There was [...]
The “Iliad” shows us human nature under extreme duress. Understanding Agamemnon and the consequences of his actions gives us a complex gauge of character. We come to recognize how often in daily life surprises come and how much they reveal that we stand in need of grace. Poor Agamemnon. At the very outset of [...]
"Gone with the Wind" will endure because it is a true work of art, an unforgettable tale that transcends the pettiness of contemporary politics. Author Margaret Mitchell deals with the universal reality of the human condition, in the same way that Homer, Dante, and Tolstoy did. No work of art has recently come under such [...]
Given the present moment in this era of confusion in American history, one wonders whether the events of 2020 count as revolutionary. Robert Nisbet’s ten conditions of real revolution may provide an answer. One of the twentieth century’s most astute observers of society, sociologist, historian, and man of letters, Professor Robert Nisbet (1913-1996), offered [...]
Whatever respite or solace Calvin Coolidge may temporarily have conferred upon the nation, Americans during the 1920s could not keep the world from turning. The system of limited government and economic deregulation that he had cultivated was elegantly false and perilously flawed, carrying within it the seeds of its own dissolution. I. For an [...]
According to Tocqueville, a new political science must account for both the immediate and the universal, the moment and the eternal. When we fail to understand the choice that God has given us with democracy—that is, a science to guide, attenuate, and hone democracy—the baser instincts will rise to the fore. Tocqueville breaks his [...]
Life entails taking risks. The failure to see that seems to be behind the readiness of so many adults in our society to accept what seem to me to be criminal limitations on our economic and social freedoms in the name of security. If there is anything I do not wish to write about anymore, [...]
It is evident from the globalist response to the COVID crisis that there will be a push for even more globalist control over our lives. Even were we willing to sacrifice our freedom for our safety, it would be folly to presume that globalist entities could solve the problems that globalism itself causes. Six [...]