Most people who are familiar with "classic" Chinese literature would say that the great novel of the genre is Tsao Hsueh-chin and Kao Ngo's Dream of Red Mansions. At the end of the novel, the central character Pao Yu, after the eventful course he has taken, makes the following statement: "So you talk about 'moral …
The First Step to Unity: A New Prayer Book
We noted last year that the great challenge of Orthodox Anglicans in North America was to find a way to coalesce into some kind of organic unity, which is necessary if we are serious about establishing an additional province in the Anglican Communion. This is trickier than it looks. Beyond the obvious problems of women's …
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When Church Becomes Pointless, Part II
Later this year, this website will celebrate its tenth anniversary. A decade is an eternity on the Internet, especially when we've spent a good deal of it following the agony of the Anglican Communion's struggle between its liberal West and conservative Global South. One of the first pieces we posted was When Church Becomes Pointless, …
The Basic Problem with Reforming a Church
The back and forth in the Church of England over the new "covenant" Evangelicals have proposed highlights the central problem that reforming or renewing any church has: without the explicit support of its hierarchy or other leadership, the effort is doomed to fail. It's a story that has been repeated too many times in chuch …
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Capax Imperii, Nisi Imperasset: The Epitaph of the Boomers
At last we start a new year. The American voters spoke that they wanted something different; what they got was a Democratically controlled Congress. The left would like for you to believe that this is the greatest thing to happen to this country since Engle vs. Vitale. The rest of us look for analogies in …
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The Funeral Message I Did Not Deliver
Recently at my church we had an event take place that was so horrific it's hard to write about. One of our more esteemed members, with an active lay ministry, shot and killed himself in front on his wife on Christmas Eve after losing his job. For a long list of reasons (not the least …
Henry Louttit: Not a Chip off the Old Block
The letter from the Bishop of Georgia, Henry Louttit, to his oldest parish trying to force them to pay up to an Episcopal Church they have no confidence in shows in vivid terms how far the Episcopal Church has gone in the last forty years. As we reminisce in a piece from our "Palm Beach …
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Pardoning Richard Nixon was the Right Thing To Do
The death of Gerald Ford has revived one of the great guessing games of the 1970's: was it right to pardon Richard Nixon after all he had done? We think it was. To drag out Nixon's trial in the liberal-controlled media of the time would have furthered the left's agenda by running down people's respect …
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A Country Needs to be Defended by its Own
Although we are unenthusiastic about bringing back the draft, we aren't any more enthusiastic about our military actively recuriting foreigners to defend our country. This is not based on some vague, moralistic patriotic urge. It is based on a knowledge of late Roman history, and specifically the disaster that the British leader Vortigern induced when …
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The Christmas Story, from the Positive Infinity New Testament
About that time an edict was issued by the Emperor Augustus that a census should be taken of the whole Empire. (This was the first census taken while Quirinius was Governor of Syria). And every one went to his own town to be registered. Among others Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in …
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Positive Infinity 