We are so accustomed to regarding the fine arts as simply a means to pursue or attain the beautiful in the abstract, that we forget that for long centuries there was a close connection between the arts and some public purpose... (essay by Thomas Storck)| The Imaginative Conservative
Only by recognizing the divine mystery that predicates existence in the world can one reclaim his individuality. Only then will he be capable of searching for meaning generated outside the human intellect. Humans can never be gods, but they need God to live meaningful lives. (essay by John Gist)| The Imaginative Conservative
A look at four more unsung heroes from the Australian continent, including the great Frank Sheed! (essay by Joseph Pearce)| The Imaginative Conservative
John Plunkett defended the dignity of the natives of Australia; Caroline Chisholm defended the dignity of vulnerable immigrants to Australia. In doing so, they offer a living witness to the Lord’s commandment that we love our neighbors. (essay by Joseph Pearce)| The Imaginative Conservative
The founding of nations always involves a willful forgetting and subsequent divinization of the founding fathers. The Scriptures are an acid that dissolves every attempt to produce an untainted origin story, and so a new nation. (essay by Marc Barnes)| The Imaginative Conservative
Great Unsung Composers of Christendom| The Imaginative Conservative
Blessed Otto Neururer would be the first priest to be martyred by the Nazis but by no means the last. (essay by Joseph Pearce)| The Imaginative Conservative
Franz Jägerstätter and Fr. Gabriel Gay are two lesser-known victims of the Nazis. May their prayers deliver Europe from the wolves of secularism and restore the European nations to the Faith which forged them. (essay by Joseph Pearce)| The Imaginative Conservative
All nations need reminders that even their best ideals, though worth defending, do not earn them chosen nation status. Reading C.S. Lewis’ "That Hideous Strength" and Langston Hughes' “Let America Be America Again” in light of each other could rouse those in need of both a restoration of confidence in the goodness of the American dream and a renewal of national humility. (essay by Bethany Getz)| The Imaginative Conservative
Was Albert Jay Nock correct in saying that the educated man is a superfluous man in modern society? (essay by Bradley J. Birzer)| The Imaginative Conservative
Surely it is a noble desire to try to create a heaven on earth, to make a paradise in this valley of tears, but that is an end that ultimately requires the denial of the reality of human existence. We are fallen, we are mortal, we are not meant to end in perfecting this created world that begins to decay at first touch. (essay by Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg)| The Imaginative Conservative
In Mary’s body, we see the total gift of God’s grace in raising and glorifying our lowly bodies to that “lofty goal” unattainable by our own efforts. All the evil which eats up our bodies—our diseases, discomforts, lusts, and addictions—will be trampled upon not by abandoning the body, but by glorifying it. (essay by Bro. Thomas Nee)| The Imaginative Conservative
One comes away from reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book wishing that she might have expressed a doubt or two about the efficacy of this or that New Frontier/Great Society domestic initiative. But it is clear that the author has no doubts about the goodness of her country. (essay by Chuck Chalberg)| The Imaginative Conservative
Liberty is not the right to do whatever I please, nor is liberty the necessity of doing whatever the dictator dictates; rather liberty is the right to do what I ought. Furthermore, “ought” is intrinsically related to purpose. The best way of finding out why a thing was made is to go to its maker. “Why did God make you?” (essay by Rev. Fulton Sheen)| The Imaginative Conservative
There is a mystery at the heart of "The Lord of the Rings" that continues to baffle and confuse the critics. Is it “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work,” as author J.R.R. Tolkien claimed in a letter, or is it, as he claimed elsewhere, devoid of any intentional meaning or message? (essay by Joseph Pearce)| The Imaginative Conservative
It is surprising that contemporary political thinking has paid relatively scant attention to St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo... (essay by John P. East)| The Imaginative Conservative
To what extent are literary epics the children of their own times, expressions of their own particular zeitgeist, and to what extent are they expressions of perennial truths that transcend fads, fashions and other temporal ephemera? Considering the epics of Homer and Virgil will enable us to understand these questions and to move towards answering them. (essay by Joseph Pearce)| The Imaginative Conservative