Robert Nisbet feared that modern totalitarians had succeeded in undermining the very foundations of goodness, truth, and morality. They had not only redefined liberty as power, but they had transformed the modern political state into a secular church, exchanging real religion for civic religion, creating a “New Leviathan.” Like most Americans during the Great Depression, [...]
The last living signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll assumed the role of republican and conservative revolutionary, representing in his old age the end of a period in history. The last of the American signers of the Declaration of Independence to pass from this world, Charles Carroll of Carroll was also one of [...]
How does one account for J.R.R. Tolkien’s seeming ability to live inside of mythology? He read it, he translated it, and he absorbed it. After all these grand things, he rewrote it. Yet, no matter how deeply he delved into the profound and pervasive paganisms of pre-Christian cultures, he never lost his ability to baptize [...]
Robert A. Nisbet rooted his eleven ideas of conservatism in contributions from sociology as an academic discipline. Sociology, in contrast to liberalism and radicalism, had merely focused on the aspect of being social and had thus best reflected the more obscure aspects of nineteenth-century conservatism. That conservatism, though, reflected some of the most important concerns [...]
The saints have served as the heroes in Western culture, and have been the impetus for renewal in the Western Tradition. God has called them, and they, by responding to His call, have become the aristocrats of the soul. Christopher Dawson, the brilliant Anglo-Welsh Roman Catholic historian of the twentieth century, argued that understanding the [...]
While Tolkien never approached theology in a systematic or even quasi-systematic way, his statements on the subject—littered throughout his collected letters—read as a Catholic version of Heraclitus’ "Fragments" or a mythic version of St. Josemaria’s "The Way." They shed great light not only on Tolkien, but on us. Though C.S. Lewis will always and understandably [...]
The baptism or sanctification of the pagan reflects the baptism and sanctification of the self. Like the former pagan sites, the Christian person too goes through a process of being lost, baptized, and sanctified. St. Paul, at Mars’ Hill, had helped break the Heraclitian, Platonic, and Stoic cycles of the classical world, by sanctifying the [...]
From the Roman Catholic perspective, the Logos is the beginning, the middle, and the end of time and history, and history itself is a reflection of the Logos. Each person—from Adam to the last person—is a finite reflection of the Infinite, a bearer of the Image of God, an incarnate soul. In the stunningly poetic [...]
There I, a convinced atheist, stood alone in a sandy and windy world, devoid of water, trees, or anything that seemed to be alive. And I couldn’t help but wonder what madness had overcome me. The most fateful university holiday I ever experienced was way back in February 1988. Yes, during that magical and mystical [...]
Despite the immense, hydra-headed problems that have arisen over the last 500 years of the West and of the World, the Church’s mission has never wavered, whatever its obstacles, internal and external. As since the beginning of its existence, it must leaven the good, promote the true, and, through subcreation, engage the beautiful. Through the [...]
One of the perennial problems in nineteenth-century American history was the so-called “Indian Problem.” And, a problem it was. American whites either idealized or demonized the Indians, usually depending on how far one lived from native tribes. The natives—understandably—did everything possible to protect their own hearth and homes, and many American reluctantly respected them for [...]
Unsure of Indian country in the West, Joseph Smith headed back east, purchasing land on the Mississippi River, north of Quincy, Illinois, in 1839, where the Mormons did exceedingly well. By 1844, the settlement of Nauvoo had become the largest town in Illinois with more than 10,000 people. Smith was at the pinnacle of his [...]
Our view of the Founding shapes our own view of ourselves. We look back to the Founders as symbols defining who we are and how we understand our culture. Donald Lutz One of the most important questions an American—or even a larger citizen of the West could ask is: what is the significance [...]
Mountain men carved paths into the western wilderness, forging the way for American merchants and settlers who also looked to the West for economic sustenance and personal autonomy. In popular and literary mythology, the figure of the mountain man became a symbol of the independence and power of the individual American in the West. White [...]