In Memoriam: Edwin J. Feulner, Jr. (1941–2025)
Champion of the Permanent Things, Friend of Russell Kirk
 

Hello John,

The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal mourns the passing of Dr. Edwin J. Feulner, founding president of The Heritage Foundation and a stalwart of the modern conservative movement. Dr. Feulner died on Friday, July 18, at the age of 83. Since then, it is heartening to read the many tributes from organizations and outlets. He was not only a pioneering institution-builder in Washington, but also a devoted friend and advocate of Russell Kirk’s thought throughout his life.

From his college days forward, Dr. Feulner recognized the importance of Kirk’s work in anchoring conservatism to a moral and cultural tradition far older than the political moment. A member of the Kirk Center’s Board of Advisors, he helped bring Kirk’s voice to Washington through numerous lectures and public appearances—many of which were later gathered into volumes such as The Politics of Prudence, which remains among Kirk’s most accessible and enduring works on statesmanship.

His support was not limited to the podium or page. Dr. Feulner was a personal friend to Russell and Annette Kirk, a bond forged not only through ideas but through shared convictions about the moral imagination, the necessity of order, their shared Catholic faith, and the responsibilities of cultural stewardship. In his final years, his enthusiasm remained undimmed. At a 2022 international conference and gala dinner in Budapest, he received a tribute and introduction from Cecilia Kirk Nelson before a capacity audience—an apt setting for a man who believed the West was not merely a place, but a shared inheritance.

Dr. Feulner’s final essay, co-authored with Vice President Mike Pence and published in National Affairs, was titled Rediscovering Order in an Age of Populism. It was a meditation on Russell Kirk’s legacy and The Roots of American Order, which Feulner called “perhaps the best guide” for conservatives seeking to understand and sustain liberty today. As he wrote:

“Conservatism values obedience to a transcendent moral order, reverence for tradition and our forebears, prudence in decision-making, humility regarding our place in history, and the pursuit of justice in a fallen world…

…To understand these principles… there is perhaps no better guide than Russell Kirk’s Roots of American Order, first published a half-century ago in 1974… Whether we are in Washington, New York, San Francisco, or the heartland, ‘the order which Americans experience is derived from the experience of those four old cities.’ These cities… flourished because they embraced an order of both polity and soul.”

In the years to come, the conservative cause will need to renew not only its principles but its memory—of figures like Edwin J. Feulner, who gave so much to preserve the intellectual and institutional foundations of ordered liberty. He understood, as Kirk did, that conservatism is not merely a reaction or a platform, but a patrimony—a tradition ever recalling us to the task of transmission. It is now ours to carry that work onward. RIP.

Yours in the permanent things,

Jeffrey O. Nelson, Ph.D
Executive Director & CEO