First Thoughts

Protest and Survive, But How?

Only those churches which have a firm and elaborate grasp of the Christian faith are likely to survive in the coming years.
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First Links — 5.5.15

Synod. The Proposal of a “Third Way”
Sandro Magister, Chiesa

Pope Francis, Tony Palmer, an iPhone & the Holy Spirit
Sean Connolly, Patheos

How Raising the Minimum Wage Hurts Small Bookstores
Gracy Olmstead, The American Conservative

Alba
Rick Mullin, The New Criterion

First Links—5.4.15

Another Misguided MOOC
Samuel Goldman, The American Conservative

Is the West's Loss of Faith Terminal?
Antony Gormley, Standpoint

Interview: David Brooks on sin and the state of his soul
Sarah Pulliam Bailey, The Washington Post

Millennials and Marriage: We've Lost the Concept of What Love Is
Matt Hadro, National Catholic Register

What We've Been Reading

I went on a vacation last week and took with me Charles Singleton's beautiful updated edition of John Payne's translation of Boccaccio's Decameron. It's a perfect vacation book: large (952 pages in my edition), escapist (the characters retreat to the country to escape the Black Death ravaging Florence), and diverting. My intent was to read the tales of the book as they are told by its characters, ten per day. My vacation was cut short by unhappy circumstances, but my reading of the Decameron has continued, and continued to be a delight.
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