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 [...]
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 [...]
Ours is the first nation under God which makes no real provision for God in its public life, owing to a great and sundering wall of separation between Church and State, religion and politics, faith and life. We live in a country whose citizenry have been, almost from the beginning of the Republic, carefully coached to [...]
In “Ash Wednesday,” T.S. Eliot repudiated his ironic style along with his despairing and nihilistic view of the world. When he wrote it, he was turning from the hell of the wasteland of unbelief to receive his ashes and begin his long Lent. T.S. Eliot’s secret baptism in 1927 marked one of the most remarkable [...]
The 1928 Book of Common Prayer is an important cultural artifact, whose influence on English language and literature rivals that of the Authorized Version of the Bible and the works of William Shakespeare. You will recall Parson Thwackum in Henry Fielding’s classic novel History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749). Mr. (never, in proper ecclesiastical usage, Reverend) Thwackum [...]
Charles Murray may well have been both a well-educated agnostic and a happy one, but today he believes that the “inescapable conclusion” is that “a God created a universe that would enable life to exist.” And in his new book, he seeks to nudge secularists along the same route that he has taken to this [...]
Paradoxical as it may seem, it remains true that man is perfect in exact proportion to the subjection he gives his superiors, to that subjection given the Supreme Being who is the First Cause and Last End of every creature. As a matter of fact, there cannot be atheism. Man may vociferously deny that he [...]
Following the example of St. Thomas, in addition to performing corporal works of mercy, we should not neglect the spiritual works of mercy. Like Thomas, we must counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, and admonish the sinner. “It is better to give alms than to treasure up gold. For almsgiving delivers from death, and it [...]
God did not provide us with something to offer, but someone. In Christ, our offering becomes pleasing. In Christ, the act of perfect worship is accomplished. When it comes to the worship of God, we quickly realize how little we are and how little our offering is in comparison to God’s greatness and majesty. In his [...]
John Henry Newman was born in 1801, at the beginning of a century that would see the rise of skepticism in matters of religion. Yet, simultaneously, it was a century which would see a real revival of religious orthodoxy. With respect to the latter, Newman himself might be seen as the most important and influential [...]
"The Blithedale Romance" conveys Nathaniel Hawthorne’s disillusionment with Brook Farm, Transcendentalism, reform movements, and the quest for individual and social perfection. I. Published in 1852, The Blithedale Romance offers Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most trenchant criticism of America.[i] Unlike his more optimistic contemporaries who imagined the advance toward individual and social perfection in the United States, Hawthorne [...]
Understood properly, October purges us of our follies and reminds us that death hovers just in front of us. It reminds us that we always stand in time, but at the very edge of eternity. The autumnal coolness—just on the edge of the dying summer—is in the air, and it feels good. Very cool, very [...]