Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Any American who has dealt with a British "cousin" (for some of us, at least) has sooner or later detected a note of condesension about those poor rude Americans in the "colonies." Sometimes this condesension is justified, sometimes not. It is with some amusement, then, that we discovered that the Church of St. Mary the …
Continue reading "The Colonies are Actually Good for Something"
Earlier this year, my wife and I got a call from an old friend who was passing through town. He wanted to meet with us, so we met him at a restaurant. He came with his wife and daughter. Things were pleasant enough until he decided to do what he liked to do best: spring …
Those of you who follow this site on a regular basis probably realise that ABC's piece on the North Dakota Bible camp is right up our alley as a topic. So we'll get right to it. The first question we need to ask is why American evangelicals use military imagery when they rarely--and we mean …
Continue reading "Fighting for Jesus: The Church Militant, American Style"
We haven't made much comment on the Pope's recent remarks about Islam because we have said many things our own way, such as: The Dilemma of Islamic Civilisation: St. Thomas was Right They Feel the Shame There was a rush along the Fulham Road... When the Sheep Have Anthrax
Last year we noted that the British system of tracking cars everywhere they went reminded us of their own 1960's television show, The Prisoner. It's only getting worse in the old country: now we have street cameras that shout at people who do things not to the authorities' taste. In some ways it's more personalised …
Final slide of the 9/11 tribute by the Church of God Chaplains Commission, presented at the 2002 General Assembly Honours Banquet. Update: the slide presentation, complete with music, is below. https://youtu.be/HINdOGSe68k
The recent call by Bishop John Lipscomb, Episcopal Bishop of Southwest Florida (a neighbour for the diocese I grew up in,) for a "40 day fast" from blogs will fall on deaf ears here at Positive Infinity. We don't claim to be high on the list of Anglican/Episcopal blogs. We do carry Virtue Online's news …
Continue reading "No, Bishop Lipscomb, We Are Not Going to Shut Up"
Last year, I documented some of my encounters with a Sudanese friend of mine who was a Sunni Muslim imam. We went back and forth on a wide variety of subjects in our conversation. One day, we reserved a graduate study room in the university library and covered the waterfront on a wide variety of …
Continue reading "9/11: Learning Little, Forgetting Nothing"
Without a doubt one of the most hilarious pieces of literature ever written is Blaise Pascal's Provincial Letters. Written in the 1650's, it consisted of a purported series of letters written by a Parisian to his friend in the provinces. At that time the Jesuits (with the help of the French monarchy) were attempted to …
Continue reading "The Bourbons, the Democrats, and the ABC 9/11 Series"
Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's decision to get out of politics reminds us of the closing poem from the Chinese author Wu Ching-Tzu's novel The Scholars: For love of the Chinhuai River, in the old days I left home; I wandered up and down behind Plum Root Forge, And strolled about in Apricot Blossom Village; …
Continue reading "Ayatollah al-Sistani: Getting out of Muslim Politics is Easier Said Than Done"
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