The Narthex
Middleton’s Rouseabout
Would we be better off expressing no views at all?
By David Daintree | April 9th 2022 4:10 PMAnybody 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,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTSeeing Islam in a New Light
Christians & Muslims agree on the greatness of God & the centrality of the family
By David Daintree | April 4th 2022 11:57 AMIt 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…
READ FULL BLOG POSTClimate Talk ‘Canceled’
Venue owner cancels talk on science and gets the reply he deserves
By David Daintree | March 30th 2022 2:29 PMWe 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…
READ FULL BLOG POSTChristianity & Slavery
Pope Paul III's bull 'Sublimis Deus' was ignored by self-interested men
By David Daintree | March 7th 2022 3:18 PMHypocrisy 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…
READ FULL BLOG POSTCordelia and the Animals
The view that animals have as much right to life as humans has deformed our priorities
By David Daintree | February 25th 2022 4:13 PMIn 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…
READ FULL BLOG POSTTaking Stock
On truth, patriotism, and standing up for freedom
By David Daintree | February 7th 2022 4:34 PMAs 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…
READ FULL BLOG POSTTwo-facedness
The Australian Open is sponsored by Emirates airline of Dubai, where homosexuality is illegal
By David Daintree | February 1st 2022 1:41 PMTennis 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…
READ FULL BLOG POSTNuts for Winter
It is not enough to educate boys and girls for a job alone
By David Daintree | November 24th 2021 3:38 PM“The Liberal Arts” is a term we hear a lot which perhaps calls for some explanation. We are not talking about precious and “arty” school subjects that students do when they can’t quite manage math and science! Though that is a common enough impression: I recall as classics master in…
READ FULL BLOG POSTTheory vs. Practice
A chasm exists between the ideas behind COVID protocols and their actual practice
By David Daintree | October 29th 2021 1:52 PMI recently returned from a visit to Perth. Western Australia and Tasmania are COVID-free “bubbles” and one is able to travel fairly freely between them (freely, that is to say, if you except the necessity of obtaining what amounts to a visa to pass from one state of the Commonwealth…
READ FULL BLOG POSTCall to Be Brave
We cannot take our liberties for granted; they can be snatched away if we drop our guard
By David Daintree | October 7th 2021 2:10 PMTo my mind the greatest challenge of human education is the building and maintaining of historical awareness. How can we have even an inkling of where we stand and where we’re heading if our grasp of the past is feeble or non-existent? Human memory is so short, and deliberate bias…
READ FULL BLOG POSTInfantilizing the People
Sweden has achieved good results with a policy of voluntary, not enforced, isolation
By David Daintree | September 22nd 2021 2:13 PMI have now had both vaccine doses; I’m neither an “anti-vaxxer” nor a conspiracy theorist. But I have good, intelligent, well-informed, and rational friends who strongly oppose the vaccine, and I do not like to see them punished by the infliction of civil disabilities or verbal abuse. Some Christians and…
READ FULL BLOG POSTMending the World
Ordinary men and women often have a very good sense of how to solve our problems
By David Daintree | September 8th 2021 2:23 PMFew today may remember the American actor and comedian George Burns. He died in 1996, at the age of exactly 100, a venerable doyen of the Vaudeville era. Never on stage without his signature cigar, he delighted generations with his arched eyebrow, gravelly voice, and pessimistic Jewish humor. My favorite…
READ FULL BLOG POSTCivil Disobedience
Recent lockdown protests in Sydney reveal a troubling division in society
By David Daintree | August 30th 2021 2:21 PMThe phrase civil disobedience stirs up a whole range of reactions. We might think of Gandhi’s brave followers beaten to the ground in their serried ranks as they tried to break the salt monopoly, or Martin Luther King’s peace marchers, or of WWII resistance fighters in Greece, France, and Italy,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTNot ‘Right-wing’
Conservatism holds that we are custodians of both the future and the past
By David Daintree | August 12th 2021 3:22 PMBeing conservative has very little to do with the political left or the political right. We at the Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies are not right-wingers. Though some of our views might be characterized as right-wing, we hold many opinions that would commonly be regarded as more typical of…
READ FULL BLOG POSTHope or Optimism?
True Christian hope reaches far beyond and soars above mere feel-good optimism
By David Daintree | August 3rd 2021 2:22 PMHope and optimism are often confused. An American wit, whose name I can’t recall, once defined a pessimist as “an optimist with the facts.” I must admit I love that kind of pithy, cynical humor that Americans do so well. Such cracks work well because there’s at least a grain…
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