Harrison Butker has been making headlines this week after his commencement speech at Benedictine College went viral on social media. Butker is the kicker for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. In Butker’s commencement speech, he criticized “Pride” month, President Biden’s policies on abortion, and the nation’s response to COVID-19. Butker has been widely…
Part of the First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Although almost no one in Washington really cares about the Constitution anymore or what the Founders would have thought, it is edifying to remind ourselves at least, from time to time, of how the Founders…
Today is the 79th anniversary of the Red Army raising the red flag of the hammer and sickle over the Reichstag in Berlin, signifying the triumph of international communism over National Socialism in Germany. To many in the West, it was a celebratory moment as it marked the end of the war in Europe. But…
This semester, I am teaching a course on totalitarianism in which we are reading the novels of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Arthur Koestler. Totalitarianism is the new name for an old and wicked thing: tyranny. It differs from tyranny in being “ideological” and “scientific.” Ideology, which Winston Churchill referred to only as an “ugly…
I can’t imagine a world without music. It’s akin to a world without great paintings, poems, or prose. Indeed, a world without music would be a world without beauty—or, I should say, a world with much less beauty. The thought of this tells us what a central part of our world great music occupies. I’ll…
C.S. Lewis wrote a short book called The Abolition of Man, comprised of only three chapters. In it, Lewis articulates what it would mean for man to abolish the part of himself which separates him from the beasts. Lewis begins by showing us that we need to pay closer attention to our children’s curriculum. The…
All morality is aggression. That sentence is shocking to our modern sensitivities. But it is a truth as immutable as claiming the sky is blue. It is often said and widely believed that radicals in the 1960s simply tried to do away with morality. That they simply tried to usher in “moral relativity,” a world…
Early in the Books of Samuel, Eli and his sons create havoc for Israel. Eli, the priest, is a devout and faithful man, but his sons are “worthless fellows.” Because of their wickedness, God punishes Israel. The failure of Eli’s sons to live up to their father’s example leads Israel to reject God’s political rule…
In today’s vernacular, the Founding Fathers were mean. They rejected the Marxist mantra that “diversity is our strength.” They believed that discrimination was necessary to strengthen and preserve their civilization and happiness. To quote John Jay from Federalist 2, With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice that Providence has been pleased to give…
God is the point on which everything depends. Far from leading us to despair, contemplating our own futility in light of God’s infinite power is good for us. The sin of man is to believe that he is in control. He is not. God created everything and sustains it by His will. We are nothing…