If young people do not have a conscious philosophy, the philosophy of relativism is the default. And if relativism is a noxious gas and our young people are the canaries, then it is only a matter of time until our whole society succumbs to the effects of those fumes. Walker Percy once wrote that novelists [...]
Art has the twin functions of reflecting a culture and shaping it. The problem that contemporary artists face is a difficult one: how to express meaning to a world that has become culturally over-stimulated by the spectacular, the hyper-sexualized, and the dumbed-down by inanity, and which has increasingly become antagonistic to manifestations of Christianity. “We [...]
"The 'contact' between seen and unseen is not a secret formula but a person," says artist Martin Earle. "The ultimate justification for Christian art is that the infinite God has taken the initiative, revealing Himself in a finite form. This is the form we encounter sacramentally in the Mass, and it is the form sacred [...]
Rest in peace, Michael Tilson Thomas. From those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area (and well beyond) who so enjoyed your years as music director, conductor, and the glorious face of the San Francisco Symphony, know that you will never be forgotten. I hate deaths. At the risk of stating the obvious, they [...]
Just what is Christian education? Is it Protestant education, is it evangelical Christian education, or does it also encompass Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox viewpoints? More than sixty years ago, A.W. Tozer wrote: There is, unfortunately, a feeling in some quarters today that there is something innately wrong about learning, and that to be spiritual [...]
The truth is that philosophy is not the apanage of the few. All may be equipped with the science of living, and one cannot be so equipped without a right, if inadequate, knowledge of the nature of things—at least, that is, of their nature as affecting human conduct. One who knows the ten commandments and [...]
Several years ago, when I was in Europe leading a pilgrimage tour to England with Joseph Pearce, I learned that the Shroud of Turin was to be on display for veneration in Turin. After the pilgrimage in England I made my way to Italy where I was joined by a friend. After a few days [...]
Glenn W. Olsen’s "The Turn to Transcendence" is a must-read for us who desire to topple the dictatorship of relativism and culture of death, and replace it with the only alternative: a civilization of love turned to the Face of Transcendence revealed in Jesus Christ. The Turn to Transcendence: The Role of Religion in the [...]
Irenaeus’s doctrine of divine pedagogy has definite application to the intellectual and spiritual life: It sets the tone for a lifestyle of quiet, patient growth in knowledge, through prayer and learning at the feet of the Lord. “Behold, I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5) St. Irenaeus of Lyons is one of the major Christian [...]
The “Seven Last Words of Christ” can seen as the verbal expression of an interior reality: namely, the mind of Christ, as formed according to a deeply ingrained, habitual life practice of living mindfully according to the Lord’s Prayer. Holy Week is an especially fruitful time for prayerful meditation. There are many liturgical events at [...]
My own continued admiration of Gerald Finzi’s majestic and moving anthem, "Lo, The Full, Final Sacrifice," lies not only in the masterful blend of music and words, but also in the confluence of so many personal memories that touch and move me. Sometimes a piece of music or art brings different aspects of one’s life [...]
It took Edmund Burke a very little time to decide that French Revolutionary philosophy posed a massive threat to civilization and social stability throughout Europe. By the end of his life, eight years after the storming of the Bastille, his fears of Jacobin contagion had led him to ask for a secret grave, removed from [...]
If the people who profess belief in God were to actually live with intentionality—in their business decisions, in their classrooms, in their television broadcasts and movie scripts, in their community organizations, and in their art—together we would transform the culture. One advantage I have in this conversation is that the Elliott household continues the discussion [...]
Beethoven wrote "Adelaide," a song for solo voice and piano, between 1794 and 1796, when he was in his mid-twenties. The text of the song is a poem in German by Friedrich von Matthisson, to whom Beethoven dedicated the work and to whom he wrote after its completion: "My most ardent wish will be fulfilled [...]