Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Charles R. Beach One of the people I was honoured to work with at Church of God Lay Ministries was Charles R. Beach. Lee College/University students remember him has a professor in modern languages but they also remember him as heading up Pioneers for Christ, leading students out in what we would call now short-term …
Continue reading "Pushing Back Against “Waist Down Religion”"
Twenty-five years ago I received the following notification from Geocities, the free website provider: Sat Aug 23 13:59:46 1997... Welcome, DON, to GeoCities Personal Home Page Program! Please write down or save the following information for future use. Your Member Name is: penlay. Your Neighborhood is: Athens/Parthenon. Your Address is: 4799. Your Current Password is: …
A few years back, in my post If You Really Want to Get Into Trouble, Read the Mediaevals, I quoted Carl Boyer's A History of Mathematics as follows: The son Georg (Cantor) took a strong interest in the finespun arguments of medieval theologians concerning continuity and the infinite, and this militated against his pursuing a mundane …
Continue reading "The Challenge from Aquinas That Changed Mathematics"
Britain may be recovering from a heatwave, but its politicians are already fearful that winter is coming. Only now, more than 170 days since the war …Britain’s elites have lost control
Last year, before the Fall semester started, I posted Teaching Secular Blasphemy, where I attacked the whole "perfect life" concept that pervades our culture, inflates our expectations and makes us depressed and angry when they don't work out. I didn't attack this idea because of their psychological or sociological damage (which are evident) but because …
Not long after the Trump election I was invited to a dinner party of the sort I’d only recently learned existed. Here’s how it goes. The host is wealthy, as are half the guests, and the other half are intellectuals there to provide entertainment. Waiters bring courses prepared by the chef in the kitchen while… The …
I've gotten some pushback on my last post Be True to Your School, Or They’ll Go Postal, which concerned recent events at our Church of God General Assembly. One major objection is my characterisation of what happened on the floor of the General Council as the Seminary being "outed." Probably the easiest way for me to …
Continue reading "Some Clarification on What I Mean By “Outed”"
My father didn't like rock music. But there was one time he made an exception. My brother was a Beach Boys fan, and one evening at the house he made us stand and listen to "Be True to Your School" as it played on our Magnavox console. My father was big on his sons being …
Continue reading "Be True to Your School, Or They’ll Go Postal"
Turning the Tables on Christian Respectability I blame Mrs. Hill. She was my childhood Sunday School teacher and she started it. She taught me the stories of Jesus with her warm smile and worn-out flannel graph. 1,593 more wordsThe Danger of a Good Reputation — American Reformer
In this week Bossuet shows the nature of Jesus Christ from a human standpoint. Many of the earlier elevations discuss his divine origins, but now Bossuet connects him with Israel’s institutions: its monarchy, its priesthood, and its own bloodline, which were necessary preparations for his mission. The elevations: Anointing of Jesus Christ. His Royalty. His […]Anointing …
Positive Infinity 