The Imaginative Conservative - Essays of the week

Essays of the Week

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission & the End of Religious Liberty by Thomas Ascik The United States Civil Rights Commission, a governmental agency of great visibility and influence, has proclaimed that religion is an impediment to civil rights and has prepared a constitutional briefing designed to defeat religion’s “discriminatory” and “intolerant” status in society. There shall be only the most restricted “exemptions.” Many people predicted that the coming of “gay rights” as a new and separately recognized classification of civil rights would lead to conflict with religious liberty. And so it has...  [MORE] The Permanent Part of the College by Eva Brann Consider the students at any time at­tending the college. Presently they grad­uate, they go to a first degree of academic honor and are students in the strict sense no longer. Alumni, on the other hand, are alumni for good. Their very name proclaims it­ they are “nurslings” who have, presum­ably, absorbed something of the college’s substance. By the college Polity all stu­dents, once matriculated, become alumni of the college, whether they leave with or without a degree, and no one can retire or “terminate” them. All other membership in the college is by choice; that of alumni alone has in it something analogous to be­ing by nature. So as nurslings of the institution, alumni are first of all asked to nourish it in return...  [MORE] The Man Who Discovered Troy? by Will Durant In the year 1822, a lad was born in Germany who was to turn the spade­ work of archeology into one of the romances of the century. His father had a passion for ancient history, and brought him up on Homer’s stories of the siege of Troy and Odysseus’ wanderings…. “With great grief I heard from him that Troy had been so completely destroyed that it had disap­peared without leaving any trace of its existence.”‘ At the age of eight, having given the matter mature consideration, Heinrich Schliemann an­nounced his intention to devote his life to the rediscovery of the lost city...  [MORE] The Constitutionalism of The Federalist Papers by William B. Allen The Antifederalists have generally been regarded as misnamed; far from being anti-confederation, anti-federal in the sense of a loose alignment of states, they were precisely the people who thought we should have a loose alignment, a federal alignment, instead of a nation, instead of a strongly centralized state. Did the Federalists steal the name Federalist because they knew that the American people were predisposed to the federal form and would not accept anything else? The portrait is intriguing; the clever Federalists swept in, picked up the popular, glorified name, Federalists, and left their opponents to be mere Antifederalists. It makes a nice story, good in the retelling. It lends drama and interest and humor, but it does not in fact recapture the historical circumstance, and thereby permit us to understand the constitutionalism involved...  [MORE] “Imagine”… a Nightmare: Why John Lennon’s Song is Wrong for the New Year by Ronald W. Stelzer Once again this New Year’s Eve, if you were tuned in to the lovefest in Times Square, the country was serenaded to the intoxicating melody and lyrics of John Lennon’s song, “Imagine," whose lyrics asks us to “imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try. No hell below us; above us only sky.” Also no religion, no countries, no possessions, etc. Ah yes, an atheist’s and communist’s paradise on earth. And just as Karl Marx assured us, the end result, if we someday join in the dream, “the world will live as one.” But we don’t need our imagination to see what Lennon’s dream would bring. We just have to observe the history of the twentieth century, and look to Bolshevik Russia and the Stalinist Soviet Union; to Mao’s China and to other lesser imitators and imaginers to see the result: hundreds of millions of fellow citizens slaughtered, starved and imprisoned...  [MORE] Emerson, Lake, & Palmer: The Curtain Descends on the Show That Never Ends by Bruce Frohnen Rock critics never liked ELP, tossing ignorant slights like “bombastic” and “overblown” at them as if composing and performing to one’s highest aspirations were mere “pretension.” But the critics’ sniping was in its way a recognition of the glory of ELP: This band did not aim merely to please an audience—though they did seek to please, including through sometimes circus-like theatrics. Nor did they aim to be “relevant” or to be “authentic” in the vulgar manner so prized by the truly pretentious half-educated who demand validation for their own inclinations and experiences. ELP sought to make art...  [MORE] The Three Wise Men Really Exist? by Dwight Longenecker It is easy to understand why skeptical New Testament scholars have relegated the magi from Matthew’s gospel to the realm of fantasy. Most ordinary Christians send their Christmas cards and attend church, never knowing that the majority of Bible scholars don’t believe the wise men existed at all. Furthermore, these scholars have taught most of the clergy that the wise men are fiction not fact. For all their lack of historical reality, the three wise men might as well be named Gandalf, Merlin, and Dumbledore rather than Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. The scholars’ conclusions rest on their modernist anti-supernatural bias. For them the story of the Magi’s visit to Bethlehem simply has too many supernatural aspects to be historically true...  [MORE] California Dreamin’: The Problem of a Once-Great State Locating the Tory Tradition in American History How the Democratic Party Can Save Itself Why Modern Music Should Listen to the Past The Power of the Liturgy The Balkanization of a Boutique World Russell Kirk’s Eliot and His Age The Inspector Morse Mysteries and a Lost Eden   Support The Imaginative Conservative