Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
For those of us who owe our theological sanity to marching through St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae and Disputed Question on Truth, his Christmas sermon, which encapsulates his method in a very nice form.  Merry Christmas! The Aquinas Institute would like to give our subscribers and supporters a Christmas gift: Aquinas’s Christmas sermon Ecce Rex …
Continue reading "Ecce Rex Tuus: St. Thomas Aquinas’ Christmas Sermon"
It's just a tad late in the Advent calendar, but just in time for Christmas: "Gaudete," sung a capella by the British folk/rock group Steeleye Span. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoQ3kbxegHY Getting British rockers (even folk types like Steeleye Span) to sing in Latin was no mean trick, but they did it, and this video furnishes the lyrics. Guaranteed …
The best way to celebrate Thanksgiving is by giving thanks in a Scriptural way, and it's set to music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SiSBRKoyVw&t=211s The entire album is here. Â The scripture it's taken from is here. Â Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
Consider this nasty, self-righteous screed: Christianity has died in the hands of Evangelicals. Evangelicalism ceased being a religious faith tradition following Jesus’ teachings concerning justice for the betterment of humanity when it made a Faustian bargain for the sake of political influence. It's amazing that people can so lack self-reflection that they don't see they've …
Continue reading "It's All About Moving Up, Only the Ladder Changes"
Bossuet, in his History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches, I, 7, gets to the point: Justification is that grace which, remitting to us our sins, at the same time renders us agreeable to God. Till then, it had been believed that what wrought this effect proceeded indeed from God, but yet necessarily existed …
Continue reading "The Strange Consequence of Luther's Concept of Justification"
One of the real shockers of recent American Christianity was the conversion of Hank Hannegraff, the "Bible Answer Man," to Greek Orthodoxy. That was upsetting to many who had followed his Bible answers for many years, but it was especially upsetting to the Reformed types, who basically acted like he had left Christianity. (That sounds …
Continue reading "Was Augustine Really the Worst for Christian Theology?"
Yogi Berra used to talk about "déjà vu all over again," and for those of us with any sense of history, we're seeing it big time with the current Jesuit Pontiff Francis and his henchman, James Martin SJ. That led me to tweet the "reverend père Jesuite" in this way: My reply to @JamesMartinSJ We've …
Continue reading "The Catholic Church Will Lose Again With the "Reverend Jesuit Fathers""
A little while back I posted How Did We Get from Scanlan to #straightouttairondale?, which posed the obvious (for me at least) question: how did Michael Scanlan, who (when I was going to the Steubenville conferences in the early 1980's) was promoting a Charismatic type of spirituality, end up at the conservative Catholic type which I …
Continue reading "Why I Think Michael Scanlan Went from Charismatic to #straightouttairondale"
Emmanuel L.P. 3000 (1975) Most rock groups were pretty compact: four or five members, but they put out the defining sound of the era. Large groups with choral leanings were exceptional, even among Christian groups. We've featured large groups like Cloud, with their ethereal sound and very Anglican harmonies. At the opposite end of the …
Mayim MM 1001 (1976) Texas Catholicism made some magnificent contributions to the "Jesus Music" era, including this, this and this. These Days is yet another contribution to that roster. From the Community Of The Well in Austin, this delight is a well produced, well instrumented production with excellent vocals and a variety of styles, from …
Positive Infinity 