I must have been living under a rock. Here it is late June, The Voice appeared a whole month ago, and it wasn’t until last week that I heard anything about it. It is a new Bible, of course, from Thomas Nelson Publishing and the Ecclesia Bible Society, the latter an outgrowth of Ecclesia Church, Houston, an “emergent” congregation. There was an earlier 2010 release of The Voice New Testament, but I slept through that as well… . Continue Reading »
Stumping in Iowa on May 24, President Obama declared, “We don’t need another political fight about ending a woman’s right to choose, or getting rid of Planned Parenthood, or taking away affordable birth control. We don’t need that. I want women to control their own health choices, just like I want my daughters to have the same economic opportunities as my sons. We’re not turning back the clock. We’re not going back there.” … Continue Reading »
Several months ago, I came across a two-volume history of the Church in the United States I’d never read before: Theodore Maynard’s The Story of American Catholicism, first published in 1941. Maynard was not a professional historian and his telling of the American Catholic story has a bit more of the apologetic edginess of early-20th century Catholicism than a 21st-century audience might find congenial… . Continue Reading »
The right to “the pursuit of happiness” affirmed in the Declaration of Independence is taken these days to affirm a right to chase after whatever makes one subjectively happy. Further, the Declaration doesn’t guarantee the right to happiness, the thought usually goes, but only the right to pursue what makes you happy. But this reading of the Declaration’s “pursuit of happiness” is wrong on both scores… . Continue Reading »
The entry of Christ into history is the greatest blessing the world has ever known, but the beauty of that event is never matched by the practice of Christians. Perhaps nowhere is this more painfully apparent than in Christian conduct toward Jews. The Passion narratives were long abused as part of a polemic against “the Jews,” who were blamed, collectively and of course wrongly, for the death of Christ. The “deicide” myth, as it became known, led to the equally destructive idea that Jews would be forced to wander the earth forever, because they had not accepted Christ… . Continue Reading »
Some years back, Stephen Gabriel’s A Father’s Covenant, a book aimed at young fathers, came out. The book consists of a series of aphorisms and promises for fathers to meditate on to help them grow in their relationships with their children, their wives, and God. These promises range from the solemn to the funny, and one made me laugh out loud: “I will play Chutes and Ladders with enthusiasm!” It reminded me of my childhood; it was a game my father used to play with my sisters and me all the time. But there is real wisdom in that promise… . Continue Reading »
Michael Gillespie has recently made a persuasive historical case for the theological origins of modernity. Erasmus, Luther, Hobbes, Locke, Descartes, et al were, according to Gillespie, working within a nominalist theology, bequeathed to them from the fourteenth century Franciscans, which cleaved nature from grace, God’s will from His nature, faith from reason, and particulars from universals… . Continue Reading »
Take a look at your family photos going back to your grandparents and great-grandparents, if you happen to have them. I have a nice one of my late father’s family when he was a little boy of three, circa 1939, taken on the family farm in North Dakota. A serious, hardscrabble Friesian family stares back at me: eight siblings; one father; no mother, as she had recently passed. Ten. I look at photos of my family of origin: Mom, dad, me, sister. Four… . Continue Reading »
Many people have been upset by the Vatican’s doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR). Understandably enough, most people haven’t actually read the assessment (after all, ecclesiastical documents tend not to be page-turners). Judging only from most media reports, we’d have to conclude that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is gathering sticks for the first auto-da-fè in centuries… . Continue Reading »
Prior to an April visit to Argentina, I read the “Aparecida Document,” the final report of the Fifth General Assembly of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM), which was held in Brazil in 2007. This master plan for the New Evangelization in Latin America is rather long”20-times longer than the Gospel of Mark, I’d guess. But in virtually every other respect it’s an entirely admirable piece of work that should be known throughout the world Church… . Continue Reading »
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