The fact that Catholic bishops ordered a favourable Golden Compass review off of their web site shows that someone in the US RCC is definitely "asleep at the switch" concerning this whole business. Having been covering this since early November (the original review, the follow-up and a comment on the whole business of the "magisterium,") …
Why Dads Matter
Academics Shawn Christianson and Jeffrey Stueve wrote about the importance of a father's love for their children. The majority of social science research, they maintained, does not recognize sufficiently the bond parents form with children in their loving and caring of them. Not only is there little mention of love in family theory, but many …
Book Review: The Gospel According to Starbucks
Next August, the ministry I work for has invited Dr. Leonard Sweet to speak at our luncheon during our church's General Assembly. In looking forward to this, it occurred to me that it would be nice if I brush up on his work. The most recent manifestation of that work in book form is The …
Continue reading "Book Review: The Gospel According to Starbucks"
Being Right May Not Be Enough
It's tempting for me to dismiss Russell Kelly's last outburst in our back and forth on tithing. But I can't quite bring myself to do so. The whole encounter has been rather bizzare, given that we both agree on the most important premise: that tithing is an Old Testament concept, not a New Testament one. …
The Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas Has Finally Won
One of the more hilarious sites on the Web relating to Roman Catholicism is the Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas, or SMMMHDH for short. When it started, the Society made the following claim: The Society is awaiting pontifical approval from the Holy See as a pious sodality. …
Going Back to the Ones That I Know…
Pope Benedict XVI is certainly shaking things up in his "new" approaches to the Mass, Anglicans and Orthodox. It has more profound implications that many people realise. To start with, he's being more proactive to Anglo-Catholicism than many anticipated. In Think Before You Convert, I figured that the Roman Catholic Church would simply pick up …
St. Jerome’s Idea of Bishops and Presbyters
One of the reasons why people join churches like Anglican, Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches (especially the last one) is to have a church which can have continuity with the "Fathers of the Church." For Roman Catholics, one of the four "Doctors of the Church" (the most important of the Fathers) is St. Jerome, the …
Continue reading "St. Jerome’s Idea of Bishops and Presbyters"
Anglican parishes to ordain own clergy. And on the flip side…
A couple of days ago I took the Anglo-Catholics to task for their ambiguous position relative to Roman Catholicism and how they needed to decide whether they are in or out of the "true church." It works both ways. Now we see that that magnificent island which filled two continents with those who wanted or …
Continue reading "Anglican parishes to ordain own clergy. And on the flip side…"
There’s Catholicism and Then There’s…
The announcement that the Traditional Anglican Communion seeks full union with Rome isn't really news. It's been their objective for a long time. The obvious dumb question here is, "why don't they just swim the Tiber and get it over with?" Part of the reason may lie in the fact that the Roman Catholic Church--wrongly, …
More on Communion as the Main Order of Worship
In his reply to my last post, Robert Easter makes the following comment on the Holy Communion: The earliest records show that weekly Communion was standard from the very first. John Wesley stressed it as still being important for the Methodists to take it weekly, and he took it several times during the week. That …
Continue reading "More on Communion as the Main Order of Worship"
Positive Infinity 