“If that is the imagination, what is the moral imagination? The eighteenth century British statesman Edmund Burke first coined the term in his great work Reflections on the Revolution in France . . . The moral imagination is the distinctively human power to conceive of men and women as moral beings . . . Modern …
Why Isn’t It Peaceful, Like Before?
“If the devil is put into a rage now more than before, it is a sign that he is more opposed than he was before. he possessed all in quiet before, but now his kingdom begins to shake” (Burroughs, Irenicum, pp. 328-329).
For Good or Ill, Imagination Rules the World
“The human heart’s desires may not be holy, and the imagination born of these unholy desires may even be demonic. After all, it was the tyrant Napoleon who hauntingly declared, ‘Imagination rules the world’ . . . Where there is no real moral imagination, itself a form of vision, the people will become captives of …
Grace or Law?
“A vision of the good has far greater power to move men and women to do the right thing than all the horrible images we may conjure up to terrify them into doing it” (Vigen Guroian, Rallying the Really Human Things, p. 10).
Not Called Limousine Liberals for Nothing
“The first duty of the modern intellectual, wrote George Orwell, is to state the obvious, to puncture ‘the smelly little orthodoxies . . . now contending for our souls..’ Orwell meant by these the totalitarian doctrines that mesmerized the intellectuals of his time and that prevented them from accepting the most obvious and evident truths …
The Devil’s Stragglers
“For example, the biblical pattern of evangelism was not at all like our modern method of picking off the devil’s stragglers, but rather a pattern of bringing the good news to household after household” (Mother Kirk, p. 236).
Scandals are Interchangeable
One of Girard’s conversation partners (Jean-Michel Oughourlian) says that it “is obvious that bringing to light the founding murder completely rules out any compromise with the principle of sacrifice” (Reader, p. 179). Well, no. Our task here is to point to some of the reasons why Girard falls into this either/or trap. “That is indeed …
Can’t Cause No Trouble No More
When the movie Amazing Grace came out, for various reasons Nancy and I were unable to see it. But it has just recently been released to DVD, and we just now finished watching it. The movie tells the glorious story of William Wilberforce and his fight against the slave trade in the British Empire. For …
Impromptu Answers to Prayer
Some time during high school, I worked for a summer or two (I forget) up at Cedar Campus, a Christian retreat center in Michigan’s upper peninsula. I have a number of fond memories of that place. Actually one of my earliest memories is of that place as well — I think I was around five, …
Green Lament for Sale at Wal Mart
I recently heard the new Eagles album was pretty good, and so I went and looked on iTunes for it. Nothing. A day or so later, I popped into a small record store downtown to ask about it, and the gentleman from the sixties running that place said, yes, it was in fact out, but …