Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
One question that Christians often ask each other is “What preacher (or minister or priest) had the greatest influence on your life?” For me that’s never been an easy question to answer, especially in the church I’m in now. Most people would assume that the church I’ve ended up with produced the most influential one, …
Continue reading "The Most Important Minister: My Tribute to Fr. Donald F.X. Connolly"
However small, however modest, however tentative this may be, it will perpetually give rise to contests and divisions. And this quest of a common denominator in contrasting convictions can develop nothing but intellectual cowardice and mediocrity, a weakening of minds and a betrayal of the rights of truth. (Jaques Maritain, True Humanism, Bles, 1938, p. …
Continue reading "What Happens When Everyone Is Supposed to Believe the Same"
It was a pleasant surprise to see Philip Jenkins article When Evangelicals Were Cool about what many of us refer to as the "Jesus Music Era". Given the protracted trashing that Evangelicals have gotten since (done, in part, because they're perceived as a threat) it's nice to see someone bring up an era--the late 1960's …
Continue reading "When Evangelicals Were Cool: He Doesn't Know the Half of It, Musically at Least"
There were two things I was hoping to escape when I joined a Pentecostal church: social-climbing Christianity and social justice Christianity. Silly me: I've achieved neither of these. I deal with the former on an irregular basis. I think my church people and pastor are aware of my rants on the subject but up to …
Continue reading "Why I've Never Been Sold on "Christian Social Activism""
Note the sign to the right. You think we need one like this for our fiscal condition?
The Washington Post's Dana Millbank is just a little too happy over the Catholic bishops' rebuke of Rep. Paul Ryan's economic proposals: In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody this month, Ryan, the author of the House Republican budget endorsed by Mitt Romney, said his program was crafted “using my Catholic faith” …
Continue reading "Playing Both Sides of the Street on Catholic Social Teaching"
An excellent way for people in the Chattanooga, TN area to fill their Holy Week is with this production:
This, from David Virtue's Online Digest, sure makes it look that way: The saga of TAC Bishop David L. Moyer and his Newman fellowship continues. He announced to his small flock this week that he would not be accepting Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson's offer of laicization in order to enter the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, he …
Continue reading "Have Loose Cannons Hepworth and Moyer Gone Overboard?"
It is fashionable (especially in Anglican/Episcopal circles where it is so common these days) to refer to conversion to Roman Catholicism as "swimming the Tiber." Although Hillaire Belloc never actually had to convert (although a recovery was in order,) his The Path to Rome (which he actually walked, via the Alps) is probably a better …
Krugman's the one who's scratching his head here: Many readers of The Times were, therefore, surprised to learn, from an excellent article published last weekend, that the regions of America most hooked on Mr. Santorum’s narcotic — the regions in which government programs account for the largest share of personal income — are precisely the …
Continue reading "Paul Krugman’s Hard Lesson in Ingratitude"
Positive Infinity 