Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organised brigandage? For, what are bands of brigands but petty kingdoms?  They also are groups of men, under the rule of a leader, bound together by a common agreement, dividing their booty according to settled principle. If this band of criminals, by recruiting more criminals, acquires …
Continue reading "St. Augustine: When Government and Brigands are Hard to Tell Apart"
An interesting thought, from Sherry Weddell at the Catherine of Siena Institute: In 1970, only 16% of non Catholic, non-Orthodox Christians qualified as renewalists. By 2000, 60% of Reformation heritage Christians in the world were renewalists. And a significant percentage of the remaining 40%, who would not formally qualify as renewalists, have nonetheless absorbed some …
This week's podcast--appropriately enough, since today is Thanksgiving in the U.S.--is Of One Accord, the title track from the Kairosingers' album. The title doesn't sound like a Thanksgiving song, but it is. This album came from Port Arthur, Texas, which was hit hard by Hurricane Ike. One organisation that made a big difference in Southeast …
Continue reading "A Thanksgiving Song–And a Special Reason for Me to be Thankful"
From Pope Benedict XVI: "The first attitude [for Christians]," he said, "is the certainty that Jesus has risen, is with the Father, and because of that, is with us forever. […] Because of this, we are secure and free of fear. This was an essential effect of Christian preaching. Fear of spirits and gods was …
Continue reading "The Hope for the Christian in the Life to Come"
For this week's contribution to Mass Confusion, I'm going back to the Lamb of God from an old favourite: Roger Smith, Michael Howell and the New Commitment's Who Shall Spread the Good News? The rest of this album is here, as it has been for the last five years.
This week's installment of Mass Confusion is Praise and Thanks to Yahweh, from the Texas group the Kairosingers. It's not quite a responsorial psalm, but it's good. Since the Vatican has outlawed the use of the word "Yahweh" for the divine name, you might want to restrict this to Masses in very small settings, where …
Continue reading "Mass Confusion: Praise and Thanks to Yahweh"
Both Fr. Greg and Abu Daoud have weighed in on this post, itself a follow-up to my reflections on the Orthodox view of the Eucharist. Let me respond to both and, in doing so, make some observations about these two important subjects. To start with the end of Fr. Greg's response: on a practical level, …
Continue reading "Thoughts on Infant Baptism and the Nature of the Church"
My four-part series on this subject got a few comments, which will enable me to expand on some things that obviously weren't clear in the first part. First thing to note: I got no responses from my Pentecostal bretheren on this subject, after the considerable back and forth on this subject here. Sooner or later …
Continue reading "Response to the Comments on “Reflections on an Orthodox View of the Eucharist”"
I wanted to ignore this but couldn't: The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was today branded a ‘papal puppet’ after he became the first leader of the Church of England to accept visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes as historical fact. He asserted that 18 visions of Our Lady allegedly experienced by Bernadette …
Continuing from before with John of Damascus' The Orthodox Faith, 4, 13: The bread and the wine are not merely figures of the body and blood of Christ (God forbid!) but the deified body of the Lord itself: for the Lord has said, "This is My body," not, this is a figure of My body: …
Continue reading "Reflections on an Orthodox View of the Eucharist: Part IV"
Positive Infinity 