Philosophers & Saints

Awakening to Virtue: Confessions of a Well-Read, Unlucky Good Girl

Both Prior and Gibbs agree that ultimately virtue orients us toward one end, to “love God and enjoy Him forever.” Loving God is difficult; it too requires our attention in a culture that is constantly distracting us. And while virtue brings about human flourishing that can be observed from the outside, loving God requires us to remember who we are on the inside. It is the place where we are to be good alone … in the presence of One.

Praying in the Streets: Ritual as an Urban Design Problem

"he city as World icon is being destroyed, not by being secularized (it was always secular at base with some sacral potencies shooting through...

First They Came for the Horses

  Jefferson County, Kansas. The following is a short excerpt from a longer essay in the forthcoming book The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry, co-edited by...

The Culture of Atomic Eros and the Hatred of the Church

It is time to consider what the latest uproar against Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church tells us about the state of our society. It is an ugly truth: the reordering of western society to the one imperative of sexual fulfillment. But, ultimately, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, we shall die not of decadence but of boredom.

Science, Self-Deification, and Gnosticism in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" provides a springboard for reflecting on the problems of scientism, especially the temptation to self-deification and, what Eric Voegelin terms, modern Gnosticism.

Ruthie Leming’s (and Rod Dreher’s) Little Way

Rod Dreher's 2006 manifesto, Crunchy Cons, was an inspiration (and provocation) to many, on both the left and the right. It wasn't that the...

Personality, Conversion, and Being: On John Paul II’s “Fides et Ratio”

The Reader Objects!: If God is Personal and Loving above all, if the Christian believes reason is fundamentally preceded by what is revealed in Faith, then what grounds has the Christian for speaking to the non-Christian? What hope for meaningful dialogue have we if Caritas precedes and envelops all?

Strauss and Schmitt Go to China

"Faced with the poverty, incompetence, and weak tyranny that real, existing socialism had delivered, many Poles I knew had begun a similar intellectual journey....

What You Need to Know About Simone Weil

Born in 1909 to secular Jewish Parisians, at age 10 Simone Weil was memorizing Racine and marching in labor union protests.  She attended the...

Multiply Your Associations and be Free

My review of Robert Nisbet's classic The Quest for Community was just published at the On-Line Library of Law and Liberty, whose stated purpose...