Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
We're coming upon Halloween, that time of year when things get scary. (I'll throw in the fact that Martin Luther posted the 95 Theses and started the Reformation on Halloween, something that Bossuet could appreciate.) In any case "ghost stories" make their way to the surface. In Cleveland, TN, that means "Tall Betsy," a story …
Continue reading "It's Time for Cleveland to Lose "Tall Betsy""
While on a recent trip to Nashville, we stopped at the Lane Motor Museum and viewed their French car exhibit. For most Americans, French cars are a total abstraction. For people in other parts of the world, it's another story. One of the most famous--perhaps the most famous--French car ever produced was the Citroën 2CV. …
In this case, from New York's Eastern Correctional Facility debate team: The debate team from New York's Eastern Correctional Facility has major bragging rights, after beating the national debate championship team from Harvard. In September, the inmates invited the Harvard team to the Napanoch prison for a friendly match. The Eastern Correctional Facility team was …
That's what Rep. Jason Chaffetz found out the hard way: A Secret Service official’s allegedly deliberate decision to embarrass Rep. Jason Chaffetz could “give pause” to other lawmakers who have applied for federal jobs, cautioned former House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis...(t)he disturbing leak to two media outlets of Chaffetz’s rejected application for a Secret …
That's a question that's as old as Anglicanism itself, as Bossuet pointed out a long time ago in his History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches, VII, 45-47: Accordingly, it thence came to pass, that Henry VIII gave the bishops power to visit their diocese with this preface: "That all jurisdiction, as well ecclesiastical …
Appoint an openly gay man to be Secretary of the Army: President Obama, in a historic first for the Pentagon, has chosen to nominate Eric Fanning to lead the Army, a move that would make him the first openly gay civilian secretary of one of the military services. Two years ago I opined that it …
Continue reading "That's One Way to Get Christians Out of the Military"
Race is the thing we seem to obsess about these days. That, in part, is because Americans on both sides of the political and religious spectrum have hung their hats on it, either explicitly (on the left) or implicitly (on the right). Looking at the results, the conventional wisdom on the subject has been unhelpful …
Continue reading "What Working for the Church of God Taught Me About Race"
It's everywhere: Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis has gone to jail for refusing to sign off on same-sex civil marriages. The usual people are taking the usual positions; it's time for something a little different. First: it isn't a "rule of law" issue. Meaningful rule of law went out the window in this country …
As I said at the start of the year, it's a year of commemorating anniversaries. Today is the twentieth anniversary of my brother's passing; he was 41 when he stepped into eternity. It's still difficult to really write about this. And it's not because I'm "blaming God" either. Most of the disasters that befell my …
Another milestone on the blog: the fortieth anniversary of the recording of the Answer Coffeehouse Rehearsal in College Station, Texas. It's primitive in many ways but for those of us who were involved in it it's the only recording out there. There aren't many Christian coffee-house recordings from the day around in general; this is …
Continue reading "An Aggie Throwback: Answer Coffeehouse Rehearsal, Forty Years Out"
Positive Infinity 