No Christian writer of the early centuries elicited greater hostility among critics of the new religion than did Origen of Alexandria. He was born toward the end of the second century, at a time when Greek thinkers began to sense that Christians presented a formidable social and intellectual . . . . Continue Reading »
When Dostoevsky wrote his last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, the revolutionary movement that would lead to Bolshevism was well underway. The terrorist organization People’s Will—one of the first such organizations in the world—performed daring assassinations and . . . . Continue Reading »
The new creation is signified by water because the first creation came through water. Continue Reading »
In the autumn of 1933, Alexandre Kojève announced to his class that history was over. He did not mean that the apocalypse was at hand, that wars and violence had ceased, that human beings would no longer love, mate, and play. Kojève called himself a god and made a radical reading of . . . . Continue Reading »
The virtue of hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage: anger with the way things are, and courage to change them for the better. These powerful words (you can find them all over the internet) are attributed to St. Augustine. Unfortunately, they may not be his. A friend of mine who is an . . . . Continue Reading »
There recur in the work of T. S. Eliot two obsessions that make one cringe: his Jew-hatred and his contempt for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The first is sometimes excused as a reflection of ambient prejudice, the second as critical crankiness. In fact, these obsessions have a common source. The . . . . Continue Reading »
For many years, apart from sporadic eruptions in American society, the issue of race has played Banquo’s ghost at the American evangelical banquet: an unsettling, unwelcome, somewhat passive guest. But recent trends in American public opinion, fueled by reports of police violence, have made race . . . . Continue Reading »
We long for the day when visitors can return once more to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Continue Reading »
Last week, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive against Karabakh, reigniting its long-simmering war with Armenia. Continue Reading »
What Éric Rohmer said of one of his characters could be said of him as well: He was committed to “redoing all of Rousseau in reverse.” His films are anti-romantic. They reject romantic notions of liberation and autonomy. They critique the cult of romantic love. They warn against a romantic . . . . Continue Reading »
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