Thomas Jefferson considered his authorship of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom one of his three greatest accomplishments; he dictated that his gravestone should acknowledge this fact next to his authorship of the Declaration of Independence and his founding of the University of Virginia. Drafted in 1777, the statute was first introduced into the Virginia [...]
In no society in the world, Robert Nisbet believed, has any people become so remote from nature as have Americans. As technology allowed him to dominate or ignore nature, the American became detached from place, having neither loyalty nor respect for the land that once nourished him… After the rather massive and—at least to the [...]
The image of reason cut adrift and order overthrown are universal symbols of enormous and compelling power. Each of us sees in the dethronement of discipline and order an immediate personal advantage… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Stephen Tonsor as he explores the history of aestetic [...]
Commentators on both the left and right portray Roy Moore as a reactionary fanatic, a homophobic theocrat, a backwards hick who somehow managed to earn a law degree, and now even a pedophile and sex offender. But the Roy Moore of media depiction is not the Roy Moore I know… I first met Roy Moore [...]
Europe may indeed perish, crucified by the sins, errors, and heresies of her own sons, but Christianity will never perish because, as Chesterton reminds us, it has a God who knows the way out of the grave… The Faith is Europe. And Europe is the Faith. Hilaire Belloc These words of Hilaire Belloc, possibly the [...]
Christians are called to live as pilgrims, understanding that home in this world lies in homelessness, albeit a special, holy homelessness… The history of Western philosophy may be but a footnote on Plato, but the history of the whole of Western philosophy, theology, politics, science, art, and the all the relationships among them—is more likely [...]
The New Atlantis is at once a fable, a work of political philosophy, and a religious text. The god that it preaches on behalf of is the humanistic god of the Enlightenment— with reason, knowledge, science, and progress as its sacred values… The spirit of the Enlightenment is vividly captured in Francis Bacon’s unfinished fable, [...]
While Netflix’s “The Crown” may not be a perfectly accurate documentary on the reign of Elizabeth II, it is certainly a powerful and poignant drama. When people ask how I get so much done I like to quip, “I don’t watch TV.” It’s not really the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. [...]
The challenge for statesmen is to use historical experience as a guide to understanding civilization and then to reconstitute civilization in the specific circumstances of the day. Imagination is essential in the process of reconstitution because it is the human faculty that puts individuals in touch with what is possible. An Imaginative Whig: Reassessing the [...]
The “purpose of free time,” paradoxical as it sounds, is more than a merely intellectual concern. The misuse of leisure is a living reality, one of great importance to those who suffer from it… What is the purpose of “free time”? The question may seem foolish. If free time is “free,” isn’t it for whatever [...]
Thomas Jefferson had hardly been exposed to the scientific and literary talents of black people except, to some extent, Phyllis Wheatley and Benjamin Banneker. At the end of his life, blacks in America were at the portal of coming into their own and would flower in the pursuits he most admired by the mid-late-19th century [...]
“Utopia” is an instructive call to return to the radical Christianity of Christ, to the purity and simplicity of His words, as the only way of saving mankind from ourselves. Thomas More’s Utopia remains one of the most puzzling and paradoxical treatises on the ideal state. In order to elucidate More’s true ideas and judgments, [...]
What we need is a love for both our country and our humanity, whether it be through religion, reason, or both. Such a position steers clear of the perfectionist aspirations of cosmopolitans and draws back from parochial nationalist sentiments by combining the best elements of American conservatism and liberalism… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay [...]
At best, what the typical college has offered its students, in recent decades, has been defecated rationality. By that term I mean a narrow rationalism or logicalism, purged of theology, moral philosophy, symbol and allegory, tradition, reverence, and the wisdom of our ancestors. This defecated rationality is the exalting of private judgment and hedonism at [...]