Philosophers & Saints 186
On the Localism of the Spheres
I have a friend who is a cloistered Trappist monk and his current obsession is the ‘outer’ and decidedly non-sedentary goal of running a marathon (on the back forty of…
Catholic Education Today: Scientiam Viarum Tuarum Nolumus
About a month ago I happened upon a copy of The Concord, student newspaper of Bellarmine University. In particular my eye was caught by a letter to the editor whereby…
An Ancient Legacy of Form: Guardini on Mastery and Nearness
Our dwelling place is the state not of nature but of culture.
Faith, Wonder, and the Method
In Summa Theologica 2-2.1.4, Aquinas argues that every action can be understood in two ways: according to its order of intention–the goal one has in mind when one acts, and…
Abstraction Rightly Understood
Part III in an ongoing series, Localism and the Universal Church. Read Part I, and Part II. Berwyn, PA. In the last installment of this series, I contended that an…
Glenn Beck Gives Utopia a Bad Name
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] So Glenn Beck has proposed his grandest scheme yet: the construction of separate planned community, literally built around (in terms of architecture and overall design)…
Conservative Wisdom from an Original Radical
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Last Friday, Tom Hayden, co-founder of the Students for a Democratic Society, principal author of 1962's Port Huron Statement (or, if you Big Lebowski fans…
Adam and Eve on the Porch: The Place of Majestic Man
Lately I’ve had the privilege of working through The Lonely Man of Faith (1965) by Joseph Soloveitchik (1903-1993), an influential Orthodox rabbi with deep ties to Yeshiva University and a…
Life Under Compulsion: The Billows Teaching Machine
Charlie Chaplin is working on an assembly line. He tightens bolts with a pair of wrenches. He does this without stop, over and over, for hours on end. The repetitive…
What’s Paleo About Evangelicalism?
The Baylor University historian, Thomas Kidd, wrote a post recently in his regular column at Patheos about evangelicals who are neither liberal nor comfortable with the GOP. He referred to…
Why the Christian Philosopher and Christian College Need Each Other
As Alasdair MacIntyre has shown, human knowledge is both “tradition-constituted” and “tradition-dependent,” as well as “tradition-transcendent.” And as he suggests in his latest book, God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of…
Thought Control and Controlling Our Thoughts
Last evening I had the joy of taking a dozen-plus college students to the Abbey of the Genesee for the first of this year’s “Newman Community Book Discussion with Monks.” 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 is "to bring together high-caliber conservative…
Contraception and Signs of Contradiction: Part II
The Yoke of Nature and Human Vocation. When it comes to marriage and the having of children we experience these gifts, burdens, and yokes in ways few other aspects of…
Contraception and Signs of Contradiction: Part I
Contraception as Apparent Moral Good. Most persons who use contraception conceive of it as a moral good. They see an unruly, pullulating nature directed toward nothing other than its own…
A Letter from Old Nick to Candidate Santorum
Sir, I write this letter to protest the public and wholly unwarranted attack on my character you have made during the course of your campaign, and which has only recently…
A Burke for Our Times
Several weeks ago, at the web journal Humane Pursuits, James Banks published an article entitled “Community as We Know It, Not as We Wish It,” which was largely a response…
Wes Jackson, Localism, and the Carbon-Based Community
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A couple of days ago, I had the lucky opportunity to listen up close to Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute here in Kansas,…
The GOP in Limbo: How Low Can You Go?
Newt Gingrich is a master of righteous indignation although he’s far better at being indignant than being righteous. What's going on with conservative Christians?
George F. Will and the Decline of the Tory
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS I don't know how many people in the conservative public sphere read George F. Will closely any longer--maybe lots of them do, but…
George Orwell and Ideology
The following essay is by Wilson Carey McWilliams, and is drawn from one of the two new collections of his writings, The Democratic Soul. More information about McWilliams, his thought,…
My Teacher, My Friend
Alexandria, VA Some, perhaps many readers here will know that I learned much of what I know of political philosophy - and, much of my understanding of life - from…
Simplicity “Bleg”
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] I'd like to call upon the collective wisdom of the Front Porch Republic, to help me with a new class I'll be teaching in the…
History’s Long Road to Tyranny: Tocqueville and the End of Equality
Devon, PA. I have just finished teaching Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America with my freshmen students. In a way I have not witnessed before, they were compelled by his…