John With Jesus: From Passover to the Garden of Gethsemane

By |2024-03-27T19:42:25-05:00March 27th, 2024|Categories: Barbara J. Elliott, Catholicism, Christianity, Easter, Gospel Reflection, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

I went with Peter to make the arrangements for the Passover supper. When we arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus had told us to look for a man carrying a pitcher of water. We were to follow him into the house he entered, ask to speak to the owner, and say: “The master asks you where is [...]

The Screen & the Abolition of Imagination

By |2024-03-21T17:37:02-05:00March 21st, 2024|Categories: Dwight Longenecker, Film, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Senior Contributors|

I enjoyed Peter Jackson’s film version of "The Lord of the Rings" and accept that a film adaptation is just that: an adaptation. However, my objection to the film rests at a more fundamental level: I object because filmic versions of fantasy fiction serve to abolish the imagination. Most Imaginative Conservative readers are fans of [...]

The Old Despotism & the New Anarchy

By |2024-03-19T22:01:23-05:00March 19th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Donald Trump, Economic History, History, James Madison, Mark Malvasi, Politics, Senior Contributors|

I. Preliminary Observations A knowledge of history provides a decent understanding of human nature, well-wrought standards of judgment, and the perspective necessary to make vital comparisons with the past that bring the present into sharper focus. In recent years, academics, journalists, and politicians have sounded alarms to signal mounting threats to democracy. I take such [...]

Tomie and the Saints

By |2024-03-15T16:35:32-05:00March 15th, 2024|Categories: Art, Beauty, Books, Catholicism, Christianity, David Deavel, Sainthood, Senior Contributors|

Tomie DePaola may not have been a saint himself, but he recognized them, venerated the love of God in their lives, and drew them in such a way that we can see that love shining through his friendly folk art icons. Through the Year with Tomie DePaola, text by Catherine Harmon and John Herreid, illustrations [...]

A Day of Private Infamy: An Alzheimer Odyssey Postscript

By |2024-03-15T17:13:06-05:00March 15th, 2024|Categories: Joseph Mussomeli, Love, Timeless Essays|

August 1, 2021. A date of little import in world affairs. A day of savage sorrow, forlorn failure—and exhilarating liberation—for me. Few days in my life have I ever looked forward to so eagerly. None had I ever dreaded more. My eagerness was and remains unseemly and obscene. My dread, overwhelming and persistent. No more lies, no [...]

Twelve Reasons to Support the American Solidarity Party

By |2024-03-14T19:53:14-05:00March 14th, 2024|Categories: Dwight Longenecker, Politics, Senior Contributors|

As we approach the presidential election, I can proudly say I am not supporting either of the main candidates, but that I am a member of the American Solidarity Party. Like Don Quixote, I shall don my saucepan helmet, ride out on Rocinante, and tilt at some windmills. We all know the set reactions to [...]

Music As If Beauty Mattered: Composer Michael Kurek in Conversation

By |2024-03-13T19:23:52-05:00March 13th, 2024|Categories: Beauty, Joseph Pearce, Music, Senior Contributors|

Fifty years ago, when E. F. Schumacher published his international bestseller, Small is Beautiful, he gave it the subtitle “economics as if people mattered”. In 2006, when I published my own book, Small is Still Beautiful, I gave it the subtitle “economics as if families mattered”. In 1977, when Christopher Derrick published his book, Escape [...]

American History on the Banks of the Potomac

By |2024-03-13T16:45:58-05:00March 13th, 2024|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, History, Timeless Essays|

Across the mighty Potomac sits the capital of our once noble and humane republic, founded upon the idea that all men are created equal, endowed with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What do the women and men who occupy the innumerable office buildings on either of the Potomac think about [...]

Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, Laughter, & Lent

By |2024-03-11T21:37:40-05:00March 11th, 2024|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Dwight Longenecker, Jane Austen, Lent, Literature, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

C.S. Lewis' obscure essay, ‘A Note on Jane Austen,’ shows that it is Austen’s humor and humility that captures Lewis’ fancy and that directs us to a Lenten lesson. In his rule Saint Benedict advises that each monk should have a holy book to read during Lent. When searching for a holy book, we are [...]

Buying Liberty or Empire? The Problem of the Louisiana Purchase

By |2024-03-09T21:02:12-06:00March 9th, 2024|Categories: Bruce Frohnen, Ordered Liberty, Timeless Essays|

The Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States in one fell swoop, may sound of little relevance to ordered liberty today. But as we face a national government of ever-increasing power and hostility toward the institutions, beliefs, and practices undergirding ordered liberty and local affection, we should consider whether the price of [...]

If Music Be the Food of Love: A Conversation With Composer Michael Kurek

By |2024-03-13T18:31:40-05:00March 6th, 2024|Categories: Joseph Pearce, Music, Senior Contributors|

Apart from Arvo Pärt, the grand old man of contemporary classical music, whose work I have admired greatly ever since I first heard Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten many years ago, Michael Kurek is the living composer whose works I especially enjoy. An American residing in Nashville, Dr. Kurek has almost single-handedly flown the flag [...]

Lent, Laughter, and the Joyful Soul

By |2024-03-06T20:37:21-06:00March 6th, 2024|Categories: Catholicism, Dwight Longenecker, Lent, Timeless Essays|

In this world darkened by the gloom of the seriously self-righteous, what is needed more than ever is the rumbustious, rollicking good humor of men and women who have seen the eternal perspective and have therefore put this world in its proper place. Before his sudden fall from the limelight last week, an interestingly entertaining [...]

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