The best way to celebrate Thanksgiving is by giving thanks in a Scriptural way, and it's set to music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SiSBRKoyVw&t=211s The entire album is here. The scripture it's taken from is here. Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
It's All About Moving Up, Only the Ladder Changes
Consider this nasty, self-righteous screed: Christianity has died in the hands of Evangelicals. Evangelicalism ceased being a religious faith tradition following Jesus’ teachings concerning justice for the betterment of humanity when it made a Faustian bargain for the sake of political influence. It's amazing that people can so lack self-reflection that they don't see they've …
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In Defence of Prog
It was a sorry moment on Twitter when I found the Atlantic's James Parker's "book review" on David Weigel's The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock. It's not as much a book review as an assault on "prog" as it's called. Given that everything else "progressive" gets good press in …
Bolshevik Revolution: Ten Days That Shook the World Still Shake
This week we remember the Bolshevik Revolution. I'd have to say that the "ten days that shook the world" (to use John Reed's phrase) have certainly shaken my life. But it was the back end of that revolution--the collapse of the Soviet Union and its aftermath--where things really got interesting for me, and the world …
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The Shifting Sands of American Law
In the midst of a thumbs-up for the estate tax repeal and the step-up basis retention, a warning: If the bill is passed without changes to these provisions, then planning will focus on maximizing basis step-up at death, perhaps with additional lifetime gift planning in anticipation of a reasonably likely future return of the estate …
Evangelicals Took Over the Church of England? So What?
An eye-opener, indeed: Fifty years later there’s good reason for evangelicals to believe Stott’s argument ultimately won the day. For instance, unlike his more liberal predecessor, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is a charismatic evangelical (and a member of Holy Trinity Brompton before he was ordained), and his counterpart in York, John Sentamu, comes …
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Healy Willan's Missa de Sancta Maria Magdelena
It was the "standard" rendition of the Holy Communion when I grew up at Bethesda-by-the-Sea, and the paid youth choir did a proper job of it. This rendition comes from St. John's Cathedral in Detroit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzYoVS8WMxQ It remains one of the most moving "masses" (that term didn't sit well with many Episcopalians) I have ever …
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The Strange Consequence of Luther's Concept of Justification
Bossuet, in his History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches, I, 7, gets to the point: Justification is that grace which, remitting to us our sins, at the same time renders us agreeable to God. Till then, it had been believed that what wrought this effect proceeded indeed from God, but yet necessarily existed …
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Justification by Litigation Doesn't Work, Either
Certainly didn't for the Episcopal Church in their "recovery" of the San Joaquin diocese: What would you say of a trustee who spent $6.8 million of his trust fund's money to recover just $1 million? Is that a healthy example of how a fiduciary should carry out his duties? You probably already guessed before I …
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The Tasteless Suburbs Were the Creation of the Government
Well, somewhat: What image springs to mind when you picture “federally subsidized housing”? Most people imagine a low-income public housing tower, a homeless shelter, or a shoddy apartment building. Nope—suburban homeowners are the single biggest recipient of housing subsidies. As a result, suburbs dominate housing in the United States. For decades, federal finance regulations incentivized single-family homes through …
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Positive Infinity 