When we raise or teach young children, we must do so with the understanding that our Christian children are simultaneously citizens of a temporal realm and citizens of a heavenly realm. In both realms they are in need of Truth. In the temporal realm, Aesop’s fables have been prized as an ideal pedagogical vehicle. They […]
The flood of hot topics that comes through our innumerable feeds has a way of trapping us in a whirlpool of endless scrolling. We read the same sentiments over and over again, since there are, after all, only so many things to say about a celebrity’s shallow comments on a shallow subject at a shallow […]
What precisely is Western culture? In a nutshell, it is the civilization that derives from the cultures of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, that was conquered and transformed by Christianity, and which has been handed down through the centuries by an education system which in more recent times has been referred to as “classical education.” These […]
Stephen Hawking once pronounced that he thought his brain was little more than a computer and that, because of this, he was unafraid to die: “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story […]
What does reason have to do with faith? What does the intellectual have to do with the spiritual? What does philosophy have to do with Christianity? These are questions that Tertullian, one of the early fathers of the Church, summed up when he asked, “What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Tertullian’s question seems to […]
I read a magazine article recently in which the reporter went to two Christian colleges, one a more standard Christian college, and another with an explicitly classical emphasis. When asked what their objectives were, the first college answered, “To save America.” The second answered, “To save Western civilization.” Why is this significant? It is significant […]
Excerpts from Climbing Parnassus What does Classical education mean today? We find that, in an uninstructed age, the old regimen needs not only defending but also defining. Once classical education pointed to an elite course of instruction based upon Greek and Latin, the two great languages of the classical world. But it also delved […]
My wife and I live on a little hill on a country lane in Kentucky. From my front porch, which is surrounded by trees and flowers, I can see farmland for twenty miles or so. It is my favorite place to be. And my favorite thing to do is to sit there in my oak […]
The oracle at Delphi stated that no man was wiser than Socrates. Socrates was so shocked by that claim that he went around questioning everyone in Athens, hoping to find someone who was wiser than he. He was such a nuisance, such a “doubter,” that he was put on trial. Like the Athenians Socrates questioned, […]
Herman Melville is often criticized for his long digressions in Moby-Dick. But Melville does not digress. His thoughts—even six hundred pages of his thoughts—really were worth writing down. My students, holding the inches-thick volume in their hands and perusing the table of contents, have trouble believing this. Nevertheless, when I teach Melville’s great work, I […]