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Epistles to Ansgar: Letter 01 The Curse of Adam

Posted December 8, 2023 By John C Wright

7 December AD 2023, Feast Day of St. Ambrose

Dear Godson,

To instruct you in the mysteries of the faith is the duty and joy of a godfather. It falls on a godfather to introduce, as best he may, to his godson the God who is to Our Father in Heaven, and tell of His wonders.

This is an auspicious day to begin the task for Saint Ambrose, whose feast today it is, is famed for reconciling the opposite parties when controversy divided the Church.

So might these letters aid you in finding fit words to say to tell of the faith within you, and to explain with those who have ears to hear how the gift from God called reason and the gift from God called faith are not now, and can never be, at odds.

But where to begin?

Were I to teach you geometry, beloved godson, it would be proper to begin at the premises and common notions and definitions, for these are the beginning of that study. But the faith is in all things and informs all things, and so anywhere is a proper beginning: all roads lead to Rome.

So I will start with this letter, this sentence. I am late in writing it. Alas, I take up my pen tardily, but readily. I meant to do this yesterday, but it slipped my mind.

Therefore let me be an example for you: In later years, when you find yourself to have fallen short, perhaps less perfect in charity than you should have been, do not allow this imperfection to hinder the speed at which you will begin to repent and to make amends.

Even in so small as thing as failing to remember to write a letter, we Sons of Adam know what is right, and we do not do it. We are imperfect beings who cannot escape the longing for perfection.

Why is that? What is man?

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Job Psalm to Wisdom

Posted October 30, 2023 By John C Wright

This gem is hidden in the midst of the Book of Job, and, as best I can tell, had little to do with anything that comes before or after, differing in mood from Job’s other speeches. Nor does it sound like the accusations of the three so-called comforters, nor the young man, nor the voice from the whirlwind. So I am not sure what to make of it, but I admire the beauty, depth, clarity, symmetry:

CHAPTER 28 of the Book of Job

1 Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they find it.

2 Iron is taken out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the stone.

3 He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death.

4 The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant; even the waters forgotten of the foot: they are dried up, they are gone away from men.

5 As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.

6 The stones of it are the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold.

7 There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen:

8 The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.

9 He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.

10 He cutteth out rivers among the rocks; and his eye seeth every precious thing.

11 He bindeth the floods from overflowing; and the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.

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12 But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?

13 Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.

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Ye Have Not Spoken Rightly of the Lord

Posted October 27, 2023 By John C Wright

The Trials of Job and the Trial of God

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. — GK Chesterton

As wiser pens than mine have written, the Book of Job is both an historical mystery and a theological mystery. It addresses the suffering of the innocent, or, closer to the mark, the suffering of the righteous. Job suffers when he deserves it not, because and only because he deserves it not.

The Book of Job raises questions never answered, or answers questions with questions, and yet, somehow, the words offer comfort without offering answers.

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The Antediluvians

Posted May 23, 2023 By John C Wright

I was watching a lecture series on the Book of Genesis, and paid particular attention to the passages normally overlooked, the genealogies, which I suppose Moses included because there was no other reckoning of years between the events of the Fall, the First Murder, the Flood and so on. Without such a reckoning, the story would merely float in the “long-ago dream-time” of myth and legend — the one thing fatal to a historical text.

The lecturer ventured the meaning of the names of the generations of Cain and Adam.

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The Christian Key to the Tarot

Posted May 20, 2023 By John C Wright

A reader with the Minor Prophetic name of Zachariah remarks: “One of the favorite tricks of the Masons and occultists is to claim Christian icons as their own.”

Hear, hear.

One of the most astonishing revelations to me was that the symbols on the Rider -Waite Tarot cards, surely a foremost example of overcuriousity in all things creepy and occult, were taken directly from Christian iconography.

The alterations of Christian iconography in Tarot cards are the result of occultists’ misappropriation of the Tarot in the late 1700s. It is with a smile of scorn one reads frauds who attribute the cards to Hermes or Solomon, or claim it to have been invented in Egyptian antiquity.

The emblems were current in the culture and well known to the people living in 15th Century Italy, where the card-game of Trumps was first popular — back in the days when people decorated buildings and raised statues in a silent language of commonly known motifs. If you put a crescent moon under the foot of a virgin on a throne, everyone knew who that was.

So all the signs that uses to look so creepy and occult to me, at a single laugh, regain their innocence.

The Trump game had a rule that placed one card higher than another in score value, so to illustrate this the so-called Major Arcanum is just a list of things medieval Christendom placed one above another, sometimes in earnest, sometimes in waggish cynicism.

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Interview with Crimelaw Part 1

Posted May 8, 2023 By John C Wright

Mr. Stephen N. Gosney had my books recommended to him, and was so well pleased with them, that he declared himself a loyal fan, and asked me to be a guest on his podcast. We rambled on together for quite a while, so the piece will be released in parts. Here is part 1.

Here is the Rumble link:
https://rumble.com/v2l0dg8-conversation-with-sci-fi-fantasy-author-john-c.-wright-part-1.html

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Morlockery

Posted February 14, 2023 By John C Wright

Morlockery

Note: It would be remiss of me not to mention at the outset that James Lindsay writes with more depth and breadth than this column covers on the issue here: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/09/first-amendment-case-freedom-from-woke-religion/

He is a writer I recommend, not because he says anything I myself have not been saying for years now, but because he says it with more clarity, more proof, and in more detail.

The Name of the Morlock

The Morlocks live among us.

The Morlock is a subhuman who imagines himself to be posthuman, that is, anointed as superior by fate or by evolution. The Morlock imagines men to be livestock. We, the vulgar, the lowly, the benighted, are lambs are to be shepherded and — for he too has a faith, albeit a perverse one — lambs to be sacrificed for the salvation of the world.

All these imaginations are vain, not merely inversions of the truth, but perversions of it. Deception and self-deception is the core of their mystery.

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The Opiate of Intellectuals

Posted January 26, 2023 By John C Wright

Scholars have debated the centrality of his rejection of religion to the Marxist scheme.

I propose atheism is fundamental to Marxism, but it is an odd form of atheism, for it follows the form of Gnostic heresy. Marxism, in other words, is an atheist religion.

In  the Introduction his A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right [First published in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, February 1844] in the opening sentence, Karl Marx states: “For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.” (italics in the original)

With these words, Marx himself defines the atheist rejection of religion as a prerequisite to all criticism.

“All criticism” here means all further effort of his grandiose scheme of remaking the suffering world of man into utopia.

More to the point, overlooked by scholars, these words also adumbrate that religion is absolutely central to the Marxist scheme because it is a religious scheme.

The world-revolution of Marx is an ersatz Armageddon or Gotterdammerung. His utopia is an ersatz New Jerusalem.

Marx is not a political reformer, but a heretic.

He is not proposing a new form of government, but a new god.

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Collyridians and Antichrist

Posted December 10, 2022 By John C Wright

Of the things which make being a convert to Catholicism absorbing to the attention, two stand out. The first is that, unlike learning the lore of a dead tradition, a living tradition teaches something new nearly every day, making it as forever fresh and fascinating as springtide or first love. The second is that, unlike adherence to settled opinion, controversy never dies, for the attacks of the unfaithful never cease, nor do the trumpets calling souls to war fall silent. The battle is always beginning.

The battle is against the muddle-headed, the untrue, and the malign. As any faithful convert from atheism to Christianity most likely would testify (and, I assume, any faithless anti-convert from Christianity to atheism would say, were an honest member of that tribe ever to be found), the main difference between them is that Christians understand atheist dogmas perfectly well, and can articulate them as well as St. Thomas Aquinas, whereas atheists argue only against caricatures and strawmen.

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The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry

Posted December 3, 2022 By John C Wright

A video that may be of interest to my beloved readers. If you have been following this website regularly, none of these ideas are likely to be new to you, put to hear them presented so clearly, and straight from the horses’ mouth, so to speak, is refreshing.

In case you do not recognize her, the interviewer is the daughter of Jordan Peterson. With him, she shares the rare habit of listening to one’s guest intently, and without interruption or self-assertion. (If Tim Pool could learn such a lesson, fewer guests would storm off his show in mid-broadcast.)

The discussion of the causes of the problem is clear enough, whereas the discussion of possible solutions leaves much to be desired.
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On Christian Magic

Posted October 30, 2022 By John C Wright

A reader posed an earnest question to me, and one of great interest to a man of my profession of faith in my profession as a fantasy author. The question is one wiser heads than mine have pondered, so my answer was to direct him thither, towards Tom Simon, the greatest living essayist of our day, and Stephen Graydanus, a reviewer who critiques films from a Christian perspective.

Nothing said below is likely to surprise a longtime reader of this space, but the thoughts, I hope, are worth repeating.

Modern fantasy stories often refer to “white magic” or “good witches” as opposed to “black magic” or “evil witches”, and often portray the magic done by wizards  or wise men as benevolent and lawful.

Given that an unbroken tradition of Biblical teaching since the Bronze Age unambiguously condemns the practice of magic as unlawful and damnable, the question my reader asked was this:

Is there any justification for a Christian to write, read, or watch stories portraying or referring to magic in a positive sense? This includes not only secular fiction such as “The Wizard of Oz” and “Disney” but also the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Yes, there is not only a justification, but a compelling one. However, the danger is also real, and we must be careful when answering the question, for it a serious one.

Let us attempt to be judicious in answering.

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Voice of Reason 43: War of Utopia and Paradise

Posted October 2, 2022 By John C Wright

Voice of Reason posts the final installment of the Last Crusade oration: Last Crusade 43: War of Utopia and Paradise.

The Last Crusade takes up arms against a fallen world.

To recover the Church and the world requires the truth. The false vision and false story that worldly powers, led by the enlightened, will lead the blind masses into utopia will and must be replaced by the true vision and true tale of the universal tragic state of mankind.

All hope in the worldly powers is vanity, because these powers have no love in them, and, with no love, there is no beauty, no virtue, no truth.

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Voice of Reason 42: Treason of the Clerks

Posted September 25, 2022 By John C Wright

Voice of Reason posts the next installment of the Last Crusade oration: Last Crusade 42: Treason of the Clerks.

The Last Crusade takes up arms against a fallen world.
To recover the Ivory Towers of the Intellectual Class, we must recognize the enemy, must organize, must besiege hence starve them of support from allies, and replace utopianism and hate with Christianity and love.

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Voice of Reason 41: The Tree of Knowledge

Posted September 18, 2022 By John C Wright

Voice of Reason posts the next installment of the Last Crusade oration: Last Crusade  41: The Tree of Knowledge.
The Last Crusade takes up arms against a fallen world.
To recover the Academy, we need to convince those with eyes to see that the educators cannot educate, the scientists cannot discover, the scholars cannot reason, under the current regime of academic conformity.

 

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Note on Christian Science Fiction

Posted September 12, 2022 By John C Wright

Good Christian science fiction should look like science fiction, but taking place in the moral universe and atmosphere of Western Civilization: see, for example, Cordwainer Smith, R.A. Lafferty, Gene Wolfe, Tim Powers, and perhaps Madeleine L’Engle.

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