Christopher Dawson Archives ~ Page 7 of 8 ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Christopher Dawson on Liberalism

By Bradley J. Birzer|2016-02-18T18:31:46-06:00June 1st, 2012|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Liberalism|

Christopher Dawson Part I: Christopher Dawson on Liberalism In the earliest drafts of the biography I wrote of Christopher Dawson, Sanctifying the World (2007), dedicated to our very own William Winston Elliott III, I included three largish-sections regarding Dawson’s critique of liberalism: The Rise of Liberalism; The Fulfillment of Liberalism; and Contending Against [...]

Rediscovering Christopher Dawson | An Interview with Dr. Bradley J. Birzer

By Carl Olson|2023-05-12T10:52:08-05:00March 28th, 2012|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Christendom, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Communio, Pope Benedict XVI|Tags: Carl Olson, Ignatius Insight|

In the mid-twentieth century, English historian Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) was widely considered to be one of the finest Catholic scholars in the English-speaking world. Today his name and work is largely unknown, even among Catholics. But that is beginning to change as Dawson is being discovered and recovered by a number of writers and historians. One [...]

What Has Civilisation to Do With Morals & Religion?

By Christopher Dawson|2022-07-23T21:25:44-05:00March 1st, 2012|Categories: Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Civilization, Featured, Quotation|

If civilisation has nothing to do with morals and religion, if social justice and political liberty are matters of indifference to it, it can have but little contact with human life in its most universal aspects. It is an artificial growth, a hot-house plant which can only flourish in a world in which everyone is [...]

Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson

By W. Winston Elliott III|2023-05-12T10:36:30-05:00February 27th, 2012|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, W. Winston Elliott III|Tags: 1UB|

Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson, Bradley J. Birzer Towering above the early twentieth century Catholic literary revival stands Christopher Dawson, the English historian and man of letters who identified culture as the animating principle of history. Since religion is the heart of culture, Dawson wrote, then “religion is the [...]

The High Achievement of Christopher Dawson

By Russell Kirk|2018-10-16T20:25:14-05:00January 17th, 2012|Categories: Books, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Featured, RAK, Russell Kirk|Tags: 1UB|

Christopher Dawson A Historian and His Word: a Life of Christopher Dawson, 1889–1970 by Christina Scott. The Dynamic Character of Christian Culture: Essays on Dawsonian Themes edited by Peter J. Cataldo. “Years ago when I was an undergraduate your Ballad of the White Horse first brought the breath of life to this period for me when I [...]

From Aeneas to Batman: Myth and History

By Bradley J. Birzer|2016-02-12T15:28:42-06:00November 1st, 2011|Categories: Aeneid, Bradley J. Birzer, C.S. Lewis, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Classics, Conservatism, Featured, Film, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literature, Myth, Virgil|Tags: Batman, Harry Potter|

With stealth and no small amount of cowardice, the Greeks creep out of their strange gift, a large wooden horse, under the cover of night and safely within the locked city walls. Rather than face Aeneas and the Trojans as men in battle, the Greeks unlock the gates, letting their murderous comrades in, and proceed [...]

Liberal Education and Christian Humanism

By Bradley J. Birzer|2016-08-03T10:37:39-05:00October 26th, 2011|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christendom, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Conservatism, Education, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Liberal Learning, Russell Kirk, T.S. Eliot|

Russell Kirk’s home A friend of mine recently told me about a banner she saw hanging inside the entrance of an American public elementary school. “You’re all number one,” the banner read. I must admit that my reaction to this was rather strong, if not downright irate. Two immediate problems sprang to mind. [...]

Remembering Christopher Dawson: Who are you?

By Bradley J. Birzer|2016-02-18T18:24:38-06:00October 13th, 2011|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christendom, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Conservatism, Featured|

Yesterday was Christopher Dawson’s birthday. Well, it would’ve been. Arriving in this world in 1889, he died a happy and joyous death in 1970. Born into a blessedly happy and interesting Victorian family and raised in the idyllic and heady atmosphere of the short-lived Edwardian period, Dawson witnessed the horror of the world descending into [...]

On Christian Humanism

By Christopher Dawson|2021-05-24T14:28:51-05:00July 22nd, 2011|Categories: Christian Humanism, Christopher Dawson, Featured, Quotation|

The spirit of Christian humanism finds expression in Alcuin’s own letters to Charles the Great: ‘If your intentions are carried out,’ he writes, ‘it may be that a new Athens will arise in France, and an Athens fairer than the old, for our Athens, ennobled by the teaching of Christ, will surpass the wisdom of [...]

Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters for OUR Russell Kirk, 1957

By Bradley J. Birzer|2017-06-29T15:20:43-05:00May 19th, 2011|Categories: Christendom, Christian Humanism, Christopher Dawson, Russell Kirk|

The teaching of ‘enduring values’ was called yesterday the true end of a university by Dr. Russell Kirk. In 1957, St. John’s University (New York City—not to be confused with the colleges in Annapolis and Santa Fe) awarded Russell Kirk a Doctorate of Humane Letters. The New York Times reported on the speech Kirk, then holding [...]

The Beginnings of Western Culture

By Christopher Dawson|2021-05-24T14:35:26-05:00March 28th, 2011|Categories: Christendom, Christian Humanism, Christopher Dawson, Featured, Quotation|

The beginnings of Western culture are to be found in the new spiritual community which arose from the ruins of the Roman Empire owing to the conversion of the Northern barbarians to the Christian faith. The Christian Church inherited the traditions of the Empire. It came to the barbarians as the bearer of a higher [...]

Roots of American Order: Jerusalem

By Gleaves Whitney|2017-06-22T16:04:32-05:00January 20th, 2011|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Christian Humanism, Christopher Dawson, Culture, Gleaves Whitney, Roots of American Order, Russell Kirk, Western Civilization|

To understand America, do not start with 1787. Or 1776. Or 1492. To understand America—or more precisely the most ancient roots of American order—go back to the second millennium B.C., to the Hebrews. Ancient Israel has had more influence on American culture than you think. So argues Russell Kirk in his magisterial work, The Roots [...]

Christian Humanists Rage Against the Machine

By Bradley J. Birzer|2017-06-26T12:00:34-05:00December 25th, 2010|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christendom, Christian Humanism, Christopher Dawson, Conservatism, Russell Kirk|

[This was a originally a talk I gave at Piety Hill, Mecosta, Michigan, in March 2003. Some of it is dated, but only a little bit. And, I’ve even softened some of my views regarding the Reformation and modern liberalism. But, overall, I’m happy with this talk. It was intended to be a celebration of [...]

The Old Republic, Part I

By Bradley J. Birzer|2017-06-19T13:56:37-05:00October 7th, 2010|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Christian Humanism, Christopher Dawson, Conservatism, Russell Kirk, Western Civilization|

As America continues on her path toward the twilight realm of decayed republics and bloated empires, it's painfully difficult for the citizen not to reflect upon that great republic of the classical world, Rome, and its fate. At its end, the republic produced its best man, Marcus T. Cicero, who could only remind those around [...]