cultural renewal / restoration

A Man’s Home Is His Monastery

If the Church is a body, as St. Paul describes it in 1st Corinthians, then the heart of Catholicism here on earth must be the monastery. Its prayers to God for the world are pumped, like blood, throughout the body of Christ giving Christianity life. If by analogy the monastery serves as our heart, what … Read more

S.O.S.: Save Our Spire

The French people have a lot of experience in rebuilding churches. World War II, World War I, various nineteenth-century governments, the French revolution, the Huguenots and, before that, the barbarian hordes all took a toll on these heavenly palaces—not to mention fires and damage due to the travails of time. This latest fire, watched by … Read more

Can Beer Brewing Help Restore Christian Culture?

“The noble person concerns himself with the root; when the root is established, the Way is born.”  ∼ Confucius, Analects 1.2 Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option has run the critical gauntlet for the past two years, earning praise, critique, and cautious assessment from both the Christian and secular press. While there is much that is … Read more

The Consequences of Losing Catholic Culture

One of the best essayists writing today is Joseph Epstein, the long-time faculty member in the English Department of Northwestern University and the former Editor-in-Chief of The American Scholar. Over the years, Epstein’s work has appeared in numerous places—sometimes with a select readership and sometimes with a more general readership. Epstein’s essay comparing the Chicago … Read more

Handicapping History

Christopher Dawson’s prophetic The Making of Europe (1932) ends where the Gentle Reader might expect such a book to begin. Dawson begins his history in the third century, with the Diocletian restoration and persecution, then traces the twilight of Late Antiquity, the many migratory shocks, and finally the eight century recovery under Charlemagne. It ends … Read more

An Aristocratic “Option” Inspired by St. Wenceslaus

We are living through dark times. Most Christians today share a sense of foreboding as we watch the decline of our culture. We see our friends and neighbors succumbing to loneliness, confusion, and despair. Our faith is increasingly regarded with hostility. Orthodox Christians find ourselves debating the best way forward, as we try to discern … Read more

The Church in the Wilderness

When looking at the American Catholic Church and the surrounding culture, the honest, orthodox Catholic is left with at least two sobering conclusions: we are losing the culture war both outside the American Catholic Church and inside its precincts. The Obergefell v. Hodges decision (same-sex “marriage”) by the SCOTUS put an exclamation point on the … Read more

The Power of Three Simple Words: We Want God

Modern political discourse is in a sad state today. Ideas are now crafted in sound bites, tweets and slogans to appeal to a world absorbed by the frenetic intemperance of instant messaging. Speech has become dominated by empty rhetoric and posturing. Expressing oneself is complicated by political correctness that suppresses common sense and objective truth. … Read more

The Real Benedict Option

The Benedict Option is a frustrating book. Despite the polarized reactions to the volume—some of which appeared before it was even released—this is not (it seems to me) the kind of book that a thoughtful reader can either embrace in toto or dismiss entirely. Rod Dreher is too inconsistent in his description of “the Benedict … Read more

The Future of the West: Christian or Pagan?

A friend of mine lives in one of Philadelphia’s comfortable suburbs. She and her husband are both attorneys. Both hold Ivy League degrees. Their community is nearly 90 percent white, rich in Quaker history, above average in education and income, and low in crime. People are friendly. Nights are quiet. Streets are clean and safe. … Read more

The Way of Life

Anthony Esolen is a prophet. But before you pick up Out of the Ashes looking for predictions concerning, say, whether Donald Trump will serve out his entire term as president, or what the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima presages for U.S.-Russia relations, be warned: Contrary to popular perception, a prophet … Read more

Cultural Renewal Requires Dreamers and Visionaries

One can tell the state of the society by its dreamers. When a society is comfortably decadent, few dare to imagine a world beyond the surrounding material comforts. In such a society, most people are content with the mediocrity of a superficial world in which those who dream are stifled and silenced. However, when a … Read more

Hope in a Time of Captivity and Persecution

In reading the latest essay by Paul Kengor in Crisis, I was taken aback in learning about James K. A. Smith’s misguided and mean-spirited attack on Rod Dreher, Anthony Esolen, and Archbishop Charles Chaput, whose recent books, among other things, offer the self-evident thesis: American culture is going to hell on a hand basket. As … Read more

Can Trumpian Populism Restore the Culture?

Like all good Catholics, I hope very much that President Donald Trump follows through on his promises to pro-life Americans. It looks as though he will follow through in appointing a pro-life Supreme Court justice; obviously this is a tremendous blessing. Despite that, regular Crisis readers may recall that I have never harbored enthusiasm for … Read more

What is Wrong with Us? How Should Christians Respond?

It’s interesting to reflect sometimes on how humanity might remember the United States of America, centuries or millennia hence. Sometimes I think it will be remembered as a light to the nations, the proverbial City on a Hill. At other times, it seems to me that it will be remembered as a cautionary tale, proving … Read more

Why Cultural Renewal Requires a Restoration of Meaning

One of the most common attitudes I encounter with today’s college students is a kind of blasé non-judgmentalism—or, worse, a passively nihilistic relativism. They are reluctant to label any behavior or belief bad, even if, in the most extreme thought experiments, it involves killing innocents. This attitude seems to get worse every year; it’s as … Read more

Our Allies in the War to Come

As the Great Wall of Chinese communism begins to show signs of crumbling into a long overdue dilapidation, a billion people will be readier than they have ever been to hear the Good News of Christ. At the same time they will meet the immense force of the anti-evangelist, the advertiser, the marketer of western … Read more

Okay, Now I Get the Good, the True and the Beautiful

The Appaloosa Music Festival opened my eyes to something I had been vaguely skeptical about, though vaguely skeptical might too weakly describe what I actually believed about the good, the true, and the beautiful (GTB). GTB can be a mode of evangelizing a hostile culture. But I had tended to view it as a way … Read more

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