by Justice Arthur KelseyFrom ancient conjurers to modern scientists, those claiming to understand the nature of matter and energy often refer to their conclusions as “laws.” Why would they do that? Newton’s Law of Gravity, for example, could just as easily be called the gravity principle or Newton’s axiom. Even so, scientists instinctively use the argot of lawyers and judges. Justice Kelsey explores the reasons why we think in legal terms when trying to understand the cosmos.
Br. Benedict Joseph of the CrossIn More Tramps Abroad, Mark Twain wrote, “Every man is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.” For some, when an average weekend’s relative liberties do not suffice, Halloween is the perfect time to let the mask fall precisely by donning one. But in this poem All Hallows’ Eve is the occasion for a rather different kind of transfiguration.
Russell Kirk
For decades now, mainstream educators have been encouraging their pupils to use their imaginations - even as the literary fare they've been offering has increasingly had the opposite effect. Russell Kirk brings his characteristic perspicacity to bear on the question of literature and the "moral imagination" in a classic essay that has only grown more relevant since it first appeared in 1981.
Brian Lapsa
Billboards confirm the truism that the human body sells - everything from stripteases to "Body Worlds". The body also seems to be behind a faddish fascination with first-millennium sects. But what does ancient Gnosticism have in common with gentlemen's clubs? More, it turns out, than one might at first suspect.
Filed: Articles / Essays, Featured, Featured Essays, Theology · Tags: Condorcet, Dan Brown, Darwin, early Church, Elaine Pagels, Gnosticism, history of Christianity, incarnation, J.S. Mill, Richard Weaver, Richmond, theology, worldviews
Violet has many ‘husbands’, none of whom she has given herself to: “I married none of them”, she says, “they married me.” It is the end of an age and the beginning of the end of an aesthetic sensibility that she and her live-in brood of bachelors furiously try to preserve. But what will come of love that always seeks the ideal, that tries never to be consummated in a particular time or place?
Roger Scruton
The Clarion Review is proud to present the third and final installment of this novella by writer and philosopher Roger Scruton.
Zoë's dreams of meeting her destiny on the streets of London are running aground fast. To whom will she turn? To Dr Leacock, the predatory postmodern professor who's always too ready to help? To Michael, the mysterious art student, who surely pours his angst into something worth living for? Back to her mother, whom she disgraced by her flight, and whom she still resents? Zoë takes her stand; will the world turn with her?
Carrie Frederick Frost
Family is on everyone's mind during Christmastide, whether it be the Holy Family of the Christmas story or our own families. But rarely is this topic approached theologically or as a virtue. Read Carrie Frederick Frost's reflection on the under-appreciated virtue of familial responsibility and its great exemplar in the novel Kristin Lavransdatter.
Roger Scruton
When we last saw Zoë, she had run away from home one morning, leaving her mother in tears. Now that her long-planned tirade against the family's Cypriot traditionalism is behind her, however, Zoë seems to have no clear idea of what she will do or where she will go when she leaves work later the same day. Or, rather, she has too many ideas...
Roger Scruton
The first installment of the novella A Dove Descending about a Greek girl who falls from too great a height. She lives in London with her pious mother, her recently-deceased father's continuing presence, and the lure of the modern life that books and a progressive professor have offered her. Now she must choose between the ancient culture she was born into and the freedoms offered by England.
Brian Lapsa
A review of Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists.
Not long ago Starbucks sandwich boards advised us to “Take comfort in ritual”—in this case the diurnal rites of lattés and Frappucinos. It’s clear enough that the Giant of Joe benefits from regular patronage, but less clear is why recommending ritual might not be off-putting to a clientele whose apple of wisdom is to “think different.” Ritual is religious (or is thought to be) and is therefore considered wholly personal. Most Westerners tend to regard its presence in public space with suspicion.
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