Barack Obama's trip to France evidently means full employment for his interpreter, as this earlier CBS piece informs us: “I don't speak a foreign language. It's embarrassing!” Barack Obama exclaimed today at town hall meeting here. Obama, who often touts his time growing up overseas, made the confession while speaking about the importance of teaching …
The Church: Going Back to What?
Jonathan Stone explores the issue of "Primal Church:" When I speak of primal church I am not speaking of some sort of neanderthal church, but rather those primitive elements that still serve as the basic building blocks of the church. For example, geometrically speaking, we can think of the primitive shapes such as cones, spheres, …
The Trouble With Morality
Time magzine is wading into deep waters with its article What Makes Us Moral. Christians automatically assume that morality is their objective, as opposed to those who would "abolish" it. But the truth is more complicated than that. Back in seventeenth century France, there were two very prominent preachers, the Jesuit Louis Bordaloue and the …
Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith
The revelation of Mother Teresa's Crisis of Faith needs to be understood in light of her emphasis on the Passion in Roman Catholic spirituality. She wrote in 1951 that the Passion was the only aspect of Jesus' life that she was interested in sharing: "I want to ... drink ONLY [her emphasis] from His chalice …
The Latin Mass and the Nature of Worship
Pope Benedict XVI has certainly been "on a roll" lately with his pronouncements. For one thing, he reminded everyone that it is the considered opinion of the Roman Catholic Church that many--if not most--non-Catholic Christian churches cannot be properly called a church. This kind of thing is not new; I dealt with this a long …
To Unite Oneself with Jesus Christ (A Holy Week Reflection)
...I pray that all those whom I have tried to help...may rise beyond it. I shall not say only beyond my thoughts, which are nothing, but beyond all that may be presented to them by the ministry of man. And in listening only to what God tells them in their hearts concerning this prayer, I …
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Anglo-Catholicism and the Role of the Church
As the orthodox Anglican alternatives to the TEC grow in strength, it has become pretty clear that the #1 division--in addition to the proliferation of purple shirts--that looms is the Anglo/Catholic vs. Evangelical divide. A little history needs to be told to put this in perspective. When Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, the control …
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The Army of Joshua
We have a friend at church who always goes about wearing a shirt--golf, button-down, you name it--silk-screened with the Ten Commandments on the back. (We really think he needs to embroider his better shirts.) He isn't a marginal type of fellow, really; he is a successful businessman and his family is very prominent and successful …
Positive Infinity 