Breaking Glass: Deliver Us From Evil
The “evil” referred to in the Lord’s Prayer is almost certainly personal,” Evil One who hates us and is forever putting us to the test. This is only the first installment of a discussion of evil.
The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
Flaunting the Flag
The Fleming Foundation’s Andy Vaught’s exclusive interview with a State Department employee angry about the recent directive against flying the Rainbow Flag.
Fatal Mistakes, #1: Reproductive Health
After decades of degrading propaganda from people like Biden, the Clintons, and the Obamas, thoughtless and feckless Americans are confused. Many of them appear to believe, seriously, that the right to kill babies is saving the lives of millions of women.
Wednesday’s Child:The Quietist Manifesto
I had insomnia the other night, and it so happened that my son, who leads what I suspect is a dissolutely sleepless life in London, engaged me in correspondence about a Russian poem we both knew. He wrote that he had tried to translate it into English, but “it kept coming out as a string of banalities.” So I spent the remaining small hours of the night trying to prove my son wrong, to succeed where, in my view, Vladimir Nabokov failed in his translation: Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal the way you dream, the things you feel. Deep...
Liberal Nationalism versus Patriotism
The words nationalism and patriotism are often confused, and even when political theorists draw a contrast, the result is often a distinction without a difference or a bizarre twist of meaning that defies everyday usage. The modern concept of nationalism (just like the concept of internationalism) took shape during the French Revolution, which implemented Rousseau’s theory of the general will and continued the process of centralization inaugurated by the monarchy. According to 19th century nationalists, the will of the nation, defined as an historic community of blood and tongue, had to find expression in a common and unified state. ...
Photios, the Franks, and the Filioque, Part II
Ever since Charlemagne had smashed the Avars at the eastern marches of his expanding realm, agents of the Frankish empire had begun infiltrating into the northern Balkans, including the lands inhabited by the Slavic tribe of the Moravians (the ancestors of the Czechs and Slovaks). Among these agents were missionaries, for the empire of Charlemagne was a Christian empire, the true Israel in the fancy of his court theologians, and the progress of the Gospel must keep pace with the expansion of boundaries into heathendom. There was bound to be a conflict then, when heathendom meant not only the Germanic...
A Restoration, perhaps?
I stopped by Notre Dame this week to find it completely encircled by high temporary construction walls. One day it’s open for you to visit almost anytime you wish. The next day it’s closed indefinitely, with life for the residents and businesses on Ile de la Cité altered considerably. Yet there was good news the other day, with lawmakers pushing for a restoration “as it was” in opposition to the hubristic “architectural competition” that was to add a second torture to the loss. No need to remake something that didn’t need to be remade. Perhaps some may even consider the...
Poems: Songs by Thomas Campion
Campion was a practicing physician and was among the finest song-writers of the elizabethan-Jacobean era. He was both a poet and a composer, who in later years was known primarily as a music theorist. The first poem is a song loosely based on a Horatian ode. The second is a translation from Catullus. I have provided links to Lumiarium.com for recordings.
The House on the Rock by Ken Rosenberger
One weekend in May, Mark Beesley, who has playing host to Ken Rosenberger (Atlanta) and Robert (Geraci) lured them–dragging the Flemings in tow with the promise of beer and cheese in Monroe (Wisconsin) to the “world-famous” House on the Rock. Here is a brief account made by one of the victims, Ken Rosenberger.
