In his new book, Michael Ward demonstrates the validity of his reputation as a preeminent guide to Lewis, with a nimble combination of deep scholarship, bright prose, and a deep respect for Lewis that never falls into undue adulation or unquestioning blindness. After Humanity: A Guide to C.S. Lewis's "The Abolition of Man" by Michael [...]
Just as no person can last forever, no republic can last forever. The trick, however, to prolonging its life is to promote that which gives it energy and vigor in its youth—virtue—and that which also staves off the inevitable tepidness that accompanies mid-life: audacity. No true republican believes that a republic lasts forever. Far from [...]
The romance of reason lays the groundwork for understanding both Hegel’s critique of Romanticism and his indebtedness to it. It helps us see how his "Phenomenology," though critical of Romantic heroes and their cult of feeling, is in its own way a romance of reason. The spirit helps me, suddenly I see counsel And confidently [...]
A ride on the river and a small-town celebration are a perfect way to spend a summer Sunday. “Dave, let’s go rafting.” It was my friend Ujae (pronounced You-jay), one of those fabulous immigrants (he’s Korean) who love America passionately and understand that it is both still a place of opportunity for one who hustles [...]
The American community that I, a Chinese national, discovered on Perrin Avenue in Lafayette, Indiana, offers its members a supportive and loving world in which religious and cultural traditions are preserved and shared beliefs venerated. It embodies many meaningful elements indicative of the original form of the community, which are absent in the ersatz ones [...]
The Odyssey, by Homer. Translated by Joe Sachs, Paul Dry Books, 2014 An excerpt from the Introduction I have never met a translation of the Odyssey I didn’t like. There are verse translations that march in boots (Richmond Lattimore) or amble along in sensible shoes (Albert Cook), or glide (Ennis Rees) or dance (Allen Mandelbaum) or [...]
Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during [...]
In the character of Gollum, J.R.R. Tolkien perfectly portrays a being distorted by depraved desire and dominated by a magnificently evil obsession. However, as I was re-reading the "The Lord of the Rings," I began to wonder about the origins of this pathetic creature. For summertime reading I have returned to an old favorite: the [...]
George Orwell was initially tempted to dismiss Charles Dickens because he seemed to have “no political program” to offer. But soon Orwell recognized this presumed defect to be a virtue and decided that Dickens was a moralist, not a revolutionary. Having recently celebrated the anniversary of our revolution of 1776, let’s remember the kind of [...]
Despite the oft-repeated mantra, college is not for everyone. Perhaps it is time to revive the traditional notion of a person’s calling: Young people need to turn to God and pray for His help to find meaning and purpose inside a world that rejects both. For students contemplating college this fall, the time has come [...]
Without a deep religious faith, Whittaker Chambers could hardly have made his stand against Communism and, in fact, almost failed to do so. “The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great.” —Stepan Trofimvovitch, in The Possessed, by Fyodor Dostoevsky Whittaker Chambers’ Witness is the [...]
What happens when one mixes science and poetry in the way that Timaeus does? What can we learn from this strange mix? My intention is to place before us some important themes that connect poetry and science. She was the single artificer of the world In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea, [...]
I found in theology something missing from philosophy as I experienced it—the undergirding of a received and popular body of knowledge found in scripture and religious tradition. Theology is a mansion with many rooms and has something to say to every aspect of the human condition. As “discourse about God,” “reasoning about God,” or “the [...]
Earlier this summer, I was walking in our backyard, and I saw one of the brothers picking up cicadas from the sidewalk and putting them back on the trees they had fallen off, and it struck me that cicadas were a good image for the spiritual life. If King David can write in the Psalms [...]