The Narthex

John Newton began his career as a slave trader. He abandoned the non-conformist Christian faith of his childhood, but the dying embers of his conscience eventually burst into flame again, fanned by the horrors of the trade, so that he turned his back on his past and became a leading…

The part played by Christianity has been neither ancillary nor supplementary but literally essential, for western civilization has been Christian in its very essence. Those who would understand the West cannot sift the Christianity out of it. The honest unbeliever who is a serious student of history and culture will…

For many people throughout the whole world the Queen's death comes as a profound shock. Not unexpected, of course, after so long a reign, but cataclysmic in its emotional and social impact. Few people in her realms have lived their lives under the reign of any other sovereign. I am…

The Dawson Centre’s recent Colloquium, the big event of our year, lived up to our expectations and indeed soared beyond: all presentations were well and evenly matched in their force and relevance. One of our guests said, "Just the one day was more stimulating than my entire undergraduate degree!" Putting…

Recently the Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies hosted Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of The Australian newspaper, who spoke to a capacity crowd on Christianity's Contribution to Western Civilization. Greg is a good friend to the Dawson Centre; he has visited on earlier occasions and always deservedly draws a large audience,…

One of William Wordsworth's best poems is an ode with the somewhat daunting title Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. It's a reflection on the progress of human life from infancy to maturity. He thinks of children as natural believers, born with an inherent sense of awe at…

Edmund Burke described society as “a partnership... between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” Conservatives feel this keenly, believing they have obligations to generations past and to come. Enemies of conservatism, often driven by deep resentment of traditional values, prefer to…

Last summer I reviewed an important book about the eugenics movement of 100 years ago, and the subject bears repeating. The book is Mark H. Sutherland's Exterminating Poverty: The true story of the eugenic plan to get rid of the poor, and the Scottish doctor who fought against it. A link…

Anybody who writes the odd opinion piece, whether spurred on by momentary outrage at some public or private folly, or just obligated to do so in going about his lawful occasions, runs dry from time to time. Or rather wonders whether there is any point in expressing views at all,…

It is a remarkable thing that the keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem are held in trust by a Muslim, Adeeb Joudeh al-Husseini, who is a member of a family that has honorably maintained the holy places there for centuries. Christians and Muslims have had a…

We at the Christopher Dawson Centre, in Australia, are looking forward to hosting a talk by Prof. Ian Plimer on Thursday April 21. He is a controversial and provocative climate scientist who questions the prevailing "narrative." After choosing the venue, a pub in central Hobart, and making the arrangements I…

Hypocrisy is the offence that Christians are most often charged with. It is a powerful and effective cudgel to beat them over the head because it appears to be self-evidently true: everyone can give you examples of Christians behaving badly, now and throughout history. The charge is immediately persuasive to…

In the last scene of one of Shakespeare’s grimmest tragedies, King Lear, by now an old and broken man, weeps for his dead daughter Cordelia:

No, no, no life? Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? Oh, thou'lt come…

As we enter the third year of pandemic-driven fear, we need to take stock of the whole range of its consequences: deaths and hospitalizations certainly, but also lives broken by business failures, the cruelty of forcing isolation on dying people, abuse of authority, absurd and scientifically unfounded regulations, the craven…

Tennis Australia celebrated January 24th this year as Gay Pride Day. Australia has changed a lot in the past couple of generations; few now challenge the freedom of LBGT people to celebrate their diversity, and many warmly applaud them and defend their right to do so. But the official sponsor…