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The Materialists’ Rapture

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. (Revelation 21:4) Proselytizers for “transhumanism” claim that through the wonders of technology, you or your children will live forever. Not only that, but within decades you will be able to transform your body and consciousness into an infinite variety of designs and purpose … Continue Reading »

Bishop Jefferts Schori’s Two Sermons: Curacao and Charleston

What happens in Curaçao doesn’t stay in Curaçao, at least if one is Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Last month, Katharine Jefferts Schori preached a routine Sunday sermon on the idyllic Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela that was so roundly criticized that it made it all the way into the pages of the New York Times, as the subject of a Beliefs column by reporter Mark Oppenheimer… . Continue Reading »

Marriage and Justice Are Wounded, But Not Fatally

You know that someone has bad news to relate when he begins by saying, “well, it could have been worse.” That is what the defenders of conjugal marriage are saying after the brace of Supreme Court rulings issued yesterday on challenges to that truth that is as old as the human race, that marriage is between a man and a woman. The net effect of the rulings is further damage to marriage, and to the power of the law to uphold the truth about it… . Continue Reading »

The Missing Voters And The Missing Agenda

“The most salient demographic change from 2008 to 2012 was the drop in white voters” argues election observer Sean Trende. To get an idea of what happened to these voters”working-class, rural, and living in the northern part of the country”it is helpful to look to Pennsylvania’s twelfth congressional district… . Continue Reading »

The “Edict of Milan,” 1,700 years later

The “Edict of Milan,” whose milleseptuacentennial (so to speak) is being marked this year, wasn’t an edict and wasn’t issued at Milan. Still, its enormous impact on the history of the Church and the West is well worth pondering on this 1,700th anniversary. In his magisterial study, The First Thousand Years, Robert Louis Wilken sets the historical record straight … Continue Reading »

How Songs Like Macklemore’s “Same Love” Change the Marriage Debate

As I write, YouTube reports almost 50 million views of the music video for “Same Love” by the hip hop duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, a single recorded to support same-sex marriage in Washington state. While not remotely approaching the 345 million views of their waggish “Thrift Shop” video, “Same Love” reached number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this month and tops the charts Down Under… . Continue Reading »

James Joyce: Right About the Church?

In the opening line of James Joyce’s Ulysses, stately, plump Buck Mulligan bears “a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.” Holding the bowl aloft he declares, “Introibo ad altare Dei.” Mulligan, in this symbolic action, expresses Joyce’s critique of Christianity: a combination of sadism, the razor, and narcissism, the mirror . . . Continue Reading »

Abortion in Ireland

The “Night of the Big Wind” is still the stuff of folklore in Ireland. On January 6, 1839, an unexpected hurricane slammed into the Emerald Isle from the North Atlantic, decimating neighborhoods from County Mayo to Dublin and becoming the worst storm ever recorded in Irish history. Waves were said to have crashed over Ireland’s towering Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. … Continue Reading »

Searching for Paradise: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Visually stunning and gripping to the last frame, Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby is a whirlwind ride into the Roaring Twenties, complete with a pulsating sound track and 3-D imagery. But its greatest strength is also its biggest weakness: Luhrmann is so intent on dazzling viewers with his frenetic, over-the-top directing style that the film constantly threatens to overshadow, if not injure, the delicacy and profundity of Fitzgerald’s exquisite novel… . Continue Reading »

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