Sheldon Vanauken, who was the author of some of the most eloquent and moving meditations of death and loss since C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed, finally has gone through the portals of eternity himself. Or, to put it in a way he would have much preferred: He has at last sailed his beloved Grey … Read more
Russell Kirk, widely known as the “Father” of modern American conservatism, is no longer in fashion among the majority of those calling themselves conservative. He is respected, of course, and in great demand as a lecturer. But by any objective measurement, Russell Kirk is not one of the stars of the conservative movement today. One … Read more
As a media figure for more than half a century, Malcolm Muggeridge knew what it was to become an image. His face and name were multiplied and replicated innumerable times, on radio waves, television screens, and in books and newsprint. While this kind of public exposure tends to feed one’s vanity, Muggeridge also knew the … Read more
All the formulas, all the precautions of orthodoxy, all the scruples of literal conformity, all barriers, in a word, are powerless to safeguard the purity of the faith. If the spirit should be lacking, dogma becomes no more than myth and the Church no more than a party. —Henri de Lubac, Paradoxes of Faith Over … Read more
Anyone who ventures to speak of the relationship between religion and the arts today is in danger of walking into a rather densely planted minefield. Whenever this subject appears in the public arena, it almost always takes a particular form: a raging controversy over some artistic affront to organized religion and the sensibilities of millions … Read more
Much has been made in recent years about the fact that we are living through a period of artistic sterility and mediocrity. The lack of great novelists, poets, painters, and composers is bemoaned; symposia are convened to explicate the crisis; alarmed critics are interviewed for their diagnosis. On the whole, the reasons given for this … Read more