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Christianity

Just Statecraft and the Problem of “Peace”: A Response

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Wise and just statesmanship would help steer this war to a cessation by providing the security guarantees that Ukraine needs, and by making clear to Russia that Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty will be defended.

Attending the Person: Twenty Years after John Paul II

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For John Paul II, the category of “person” relates to everything that matters to the human being. His pontificate, to my mind, is best understood as the pontificate of the person.

Andrew Tate and Conservatives’ Kierkegaard Trap

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Reflexive contrarianism is the root of much of the resurgence of anti-Semitism on the Right, as well as of many other bizarre reactionary opinions that now seem to be gaining traction in some circles. It is presumed that whatever most offends the powers that be is probably true, or at least a useful corrective to a one-sided establishment. Those who fall into this pattern tend to take contradiction and condemnation as confirmation that they are on to something—and as justification to further radicalize.

Society Stays Christian Longer If It Respects Religious Freedom: New Evidence from Pew

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If Christians want America to be more Christian, they should recommit themselves to the deeply Christian principle of freedom of religion.

Patience, Docility, and Hope

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It’s Lent, again, and that’s good news. We are asked to acknowledge our moral agency along with our responsibility for distorting ourselves—without shifting blame to any other—and then to repent, in patient docility, sustained by a hope that distortion can become integrity and our sorrows turn to joy.

The Freedom of Lent

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Lent is not merely an occasion to give up chocolate or beer, do a few good deeds, and give a bit more to charity, although those are all acceptable ways to do penance. Lent is more: an intransigent insistence that humans are free and possess, in whatever condition they happen to find themselves, the dignity of responsibility.

The Deceitfulness of Wealth

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If wealth is as deceitful as Christ teaches in this parable of the sower, and we are the wealthiest society that has ever existed, then the occasion for temptation and deception is greater as well. And so we must cultivate habits of gratitude for what God has provided to us and practices of giving for what God wills.

Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License

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Called to Liberty may prove useful for those outside the Church who seek a broad introduction to the paradoxes of freedom. Still, more is needed to recover freedom from its current drubbing by both radicals on the Left and reactionaries on the Right—a drubbing that increasingly rejects measure, moderation, and maturity. 

Scrutinizing the Sacred

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Scruton was acutely aware that, in a society that has largely lost its religion, art can give people a sense of the timeless and transcendental. That is why he spent his life defending genuine art from those who would “do dirt on life.” However, it is also true that art can never provide the redemption that is promised by religion. The reason for this is that while art may offer us “intimations” of the sacred, only religion can reconcile us to it. 

The Euthanasia of Ivan Ilyich: Recovering Good Lives and Deaths in the Age of Assisted Dying

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The direction of our culture is increasingly toward “death pods” where we will die alone, because we, like Ivan, have refused to really live together. Resisting such a culture of solitary and uncared for assisted dying will take legislation, but it will also require that we spend some time with Ilyich and try to recover the goodness of a good life and of a good death. S

Forming a Cultural Mind

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If you want a guide for revitalizing Western academia and culture, read Joseph Stuart’s masterly introduction to the thought of Christopher Dawson.

In Defense of Christian Civilization

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In announcing Christianity’s incompatibility with civilization, Kingsnorth implicitly claims to have noticed a vital truth of the faith that was somehow overlooked by most of the great teachers of Christianity for most of Christian history. This is a rather dubious proposition.

Harmonizing Heaven and Earth: A Response to Kingsnorth’s “Against Christian Civilization”

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The answer to the fear of Babylon, then—Kingsnorth’s “civilizational Christianity”—is not to relinquish the fields where civilization is made in order to pursue a purer form of Christian service. The answer is rather to seek the Kingdom first with such clarity of intention that every domain of human making can assume its rightful share in Christ’s offering of himself and all created things to his Father.

Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious

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Once you concede that the universe might be a bit more than just a collision of atoms doing meaningless expansions and contractions, you are not standing alone next to an enigmatic aurochs, staring with bafflement into its inhuman eyes. No, you are standing in the same place that generations of human beings have found themselves before: at the beginning of a journey, a quest, a pilgrim’s progress, that you have good reason to believe is going somewhere quite important, somewhere of ultimate significance.

Jordan Peterson and the Problem of God

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Peterson is not looking to illuminate the pages of the Bible per se. He seems interested in the Bible only insofar as the stories it contains connect with other mythical or symbolic stories throughout human history, and support his main thesis: that each individual should aim at that which is highest and organize life (and by extension, society) accordingly.
Orthodox church

The “Finest in Disorganized Religion?” Orthodox Christianity Endures

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While Orthodoxy’s “multipolar” context arguably can foster temporary frictions, across centuries it has also lent itself to an oddly flexible resilience, not always easily legible to Western perspectives.
Cross on a hill

Tracing the Work of Redemption throughout History

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McDermott’s central claim is surely right. In everything and in every place, God is providentially at work to effect redemption. If engaging with his work can foster this awareness in us as readers, then that is precisely a “dimensional difference” that will be all to the good, raising to greater consciousness the wonder and beauty of God’s work.
Cardinal Newman

John Henry Newman, Ida Görres, and the Power of Hagiography: An Interview with Jennifer Bryson

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The book’s importance goes beyond the perennial value of Newman; Görres penetrates deeply into the heart of Newman’s character and life. In doing so, she reveals what made him holy, and holiness is of perennial value.
Notre Dame

A Restoration Worth Noting: Notre Dame Lives On

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It is once again time to build in stone, to raise walls high, to vault our ceilings in limestone, to buttress the walls, to construct heavy timber and lead towers to the heavens, and to revive the art of murals, statues, and stained glass.
Jordan Peterson

We Who Wrestle with God: On the Border of Things

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Peterson leads us to the door of the Church, but we must take the step our guide is unwilling to take and enter inside. We pray for Peterson to join us, not because we need an ally—the Truth will fend for itself—but because we hope he can embrace the “ridiculously good” gift of grace, cross the border, and become a brother united in Christ.

The Christmas World of I John

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Christmas carolers

Keep Satan in Christmas

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The experience of hearing and singing and sharing these familiar carols year after year is like the best experience of liturgy, in its combination of familiarity and fresh moments of discovery, when universally known words that have for years rolled across one’s lips in rote repetition suddenly blaze forth with meaning, vividly and achingly true.
Advent

Awaiting the Second Advent

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Christmas hope is grounded both in the reality of Christ’s first advent and also in the reality that he will come again to fully establish the peace his princely rule has promised. This is one of the great paradoxes of the faith: Christ has come, and he is coming. The kingdom has arrived, yet we pray “Thy kingdom come.”
Catholic church in America

American Catholics (and Others) after the Election

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Catholics can nurture their own friendships with serious adherents of other denominations and faiths. We can collaborate on projects to improve our neighborhoods and broader society. We can learn from each other in dealing with the many challenges of running a godly household today, from the sublime to the mundane. Wherever possible, and to the extent that our respective traditions permit, we can pray together to our common Father—for His blessings on our country, at least.
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