The Homeric Christian: Gladstone’s Politics of Prudence

by: Melvin Schut

Ours is a time of entitlements, massive debt, and focus groups. Politicians court the public, tax, and redistribute. Yet it was not always thus. The nineteenth century has long been considered the heyday of small government and fiscal responsibility, especially pertaining Britain. And justifiably so. For this, William Ewart Gladstone deserves more credit than anyone else.

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A Try at Nobility

By: Stephen Gatlin

Joseph Bottum in the New Criterion has commented ably on some of the strengths and the signal weaknesses of Rieman’s book. My concerns here are not intended to overlap substantially with Bottum’s. Indeed, both Riemen’s and Bottum’s observations are well taken. By now, the demise of civilization (whatever this word may mean) is perhaps the greatest cliché among intellectuals everywhere. Mass society, especially perhaps of the American variety, is likely the most perturbing. The eminent Jacques Barzun has had the last word on this grand lament.

Ascetic Practice as a Tool for Comparative Religion?

By Nathan G. Jennings

What does asceticism have to do with the formation of religious subjectivity? Can asceticism provide a point of comparison between religions? Gavin Flood, in his excellent new volume, The Ascetic Self, answers these questions with the thesis that asceticism is “the internalization of tradition, the shaping of the narrative of a life in accordance with the narrative of tradition that might be seen as the performance of the memory of tradition” (p. ix). Flood treats the literature on asceticism that has accumulated over the past twenty years or so.

A Man of Action

By: Jonathan David Price

Coffee is all that matters to Mr. Johnson at this hour. One cup at eight. Only in the morning. He has only missed his coffee twice, the day he had to leave his wife and kids, and the day his mother died. He was bitter both days. Mr. Johnson likes his coffee bitter—two squirts of milk… Read more

The Historical Jesus cartoon

Ecclesia©

Drawn by Joseph Farris, a staff cartoonist for the New Yorker. His personal website is www.josephfarris.com.

Creaters and idea: The Brothers Price.

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Ecclesia© is an occasional theological cartoon that appears alongside other cartoons in the Clarion Review.

This cartoon may not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the Clarion Review.

Our Hero Socrates

Peter Augustine Lawler

It’s my pleasure to be able to introduce Nalin Ranasinghe’s Socrates and the Underworld: On Plato’s Gorgias to you as one of the most able, eloquent, noble, profound, and loving books ever written on Socrates. Ranasinghe restores for us the example of a moral hero who inaugurated a moral revolution in opposition to his country’s post-imperial cynicism and nihilism. What Socrates discovered about the human soul remains true for us in our similarly cynical and nihilistic time. Here’s the truth:

The Real Historical Jesus

Louis Markos

A review of Is Jesus the Only Savior? by James R. Edwards (Eerdmans, 2005).

Studies have shown that Christian youth are just as likely as their secular, non-believing peers to agree with the statement, “everything is relative.” They may have a deep relationship with Christ and a clear understanding of the basic tenets of Christian orthodoxy, and yet believe simultaneously (and without feeling any cognitive dissonance) that Christ is but one of many paths to God.

Whisper

Jeffrey Bilbro

 

A parody Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. In “Whisper” Mr. Bilbro breaks down some of the feelings of and about Generation ME. A thought provoking piece that should be required reading in all freshman English classes.

The Hook of Truth

Gerard Kreijen

A review of Edmund Campion: A Life by Evelyn Waugh (Ignatius Press, 2005 [First published by Longmans, 1935])

That the undisputed master of dark humor and satire should have produced what is arguably the most compelling short biography of a saint to date is perhaps even more extraordinary than the claim that, today, both the biography and its author deserve close attention. Indeed, few means serve better to confront the hollow relativism of our age than turning to the conversion of Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) and the life of Edmund Campion (1540-1581), the saintly subject of his 1935 book.

Slamming My Next Poem Home

Milton W. Mannix

 

Yes, it’s another poem about poems, but this one is not like the others. Milton Mannix uses all the poet’s tools to drive each line home.

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