When Michael Moore is doing the complaining: But if they're not laying people off yet, they're also not hiring. During the first half of 2010, GM made $2.2 billion in profit, yet according to The Wall Street Journal, they've only added 2,000 jobs in all of North America, taking their workforce from 113,000 to 115,000. …
Catechises and Baptismal Regeneration
This is the second in a sporadic series on the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The first one was Is It Proper to Refer to Christians as Enlightened? If there's one thing that many Evangelicals agree on, it's that there's no baptismal regeneration. On the other hand, Roman Catholics and others live and …
Robert Gibbs Evidently Isn't Worried About the Right Wingers Taking Drugs
But only President Obama's left-wing critics: During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough. “I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” …
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Why the Republicans' "Fourteenth Amendment" Campaign is a Waste of Time
There's been a great deal of press about the campaign by certain Republican leaders to either amend or redefine the Fourteenth Amendment to exclude the children of illegal immigrants from American citizenship. I don't think it's a winning issue politically, but on a more profound level it's based on the a priori assumption that American …
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The Ultimate Insult: Comparing the Obama Administration to France's Ancien Régime
When the Telegraph's Nile Gardiner says that "the British press...has a far less deferential approach towards the White House," he's not just kidding: What the great French historian Alexis de Tocqueville would make of today’s Obama administration were he alive today is anyone’s guess. But I would wager that the author of L’Ancien Régime and …
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Now They Tell Us: Finding Cheaper College Textbooks
The New York Times informs us that Bush-era legislation will help make it cheaper to find college textbooks: You might call it the college student’s first lesson in exploitation: paying $100 for a textbook, then getting a mere $12 when reselling to the campus bookstore at the end of the semester. College textbook prices rose …
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To Help the Regents' Exam, Maybe They Should Bring Back the Regents' Prayer
Like many other things in public education, the New York state Regents' exams for its high school students aren't working as planned: The big story in New York education circles is the further confirmation of what longtime critics have alleged: that the feel-good story of rising student test scores over the last several years is …
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Civil Marriage: It Is Time for a Divorce
Oh, yes, it is: In the 1500s, a pestering theologian instituted something called the Marriage Ordinance in Geneva, which made "state registration and church consecration" a dual requirement of matrimony. We have yet to get over this mistake. But isn't it about time we freed marriage from the state? Imagine if government had no interest …
Is It Proper to Refer to Christians as Enlightened?
This is the first in a sporadic series on the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. When we think of people becoming Christians, what term do we associate with this? Traditionally, Evangelicals would think in terms of “born again” or “saved.” It's hard to know sometimes what others call it, because in other cases …
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Priest-in-Charge, Pastoral Woes and Authority in the Church
I found intriguing Elizabeth Kaeton's piece on priests-in-charge. It was interesting because it's one of those rare posts (in this case from a liberal) which transcends the left-right divide that defines just about everything these days. For my Evangelical readers, if you're interested in the whole business of "priest-in-charge" you'll need to read her post. …
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Positive Infinity 