About this time each year, I survey my theology students on the question, “Does the sun rise?” Most say, No. This year, one said it’s “super-obvious” that the sun does not rise. They fall into nervous silence when I insist that it does. The occasion for my survey is an annual discussion of Galileo’s famous 1615 letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. During a dinner party with the Grand Duchess, Benedictine friar Benedetto Castelli defended the new heliocentric theory and refuted the Scriptural arguments that another member of the party advanced in favor of geocentricity… . Continue Reading»
For most Protestants in America, “Church shopping” has become a staple of religious life, and this is no less true for Catholics, on the parish level at least. Once the shopping is done, we settle into our regular communities, and have very little experience of the different ways our co-religionists practice the faith. We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, each in our own worlds. Often our decisions of parish are driven by aesthetics, such as taste in music. For my own part, I will admit that the sight of a drum kit in a church stops me cold and that any music written by a certain “Marty” presents me with a near occasion of sin… . Continue Reading»
“When I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my pistol,” said the Nazi playwright Hans Johst. I suspect that if our paths had ever crossed, Johst would have shot me on sight. For I am what he would have despised most: a culturist. I love culture. I love high culture, low culture, and middlebrow culture. I love pop culture, folk culture, and church culture. I love Texas culture, American culture, and the culture of Western civilization. I worry about culture wars and wars on culture. I despise cultural relativism and fret about the decline of culture. I read about the theology of culture and how to transform, redeem, and restore culture. I think about culture. A lot… . Continue Reading»
Two weeks into the NFL season, ESPN ran a Sunday morning special exploring why the third-string quarterback of the Denver Broncos, Tim Tebow, had become the most polarizing figure in American sports”more polarizing than trash-talking NBA behemoths; more polarizing than foul-mouthed Serena Williams; more polarizing than NFL all-stars who father numerous children by numerous women, all out of wedlock. Why does Tebow, and Tebow alone, arouse such passions? Why is Tebow the one whom “comedians” say they would like to shoot? … Continue Reading»
A big story getting barely any press outside of Catholic media is that the government is getting ready to press ahead with policies intended”note the word, intended”to intrude upon one of the fundamental rights on which the nation was built: the freedom of religion. Under the 2010 health care law colloquially known as “Obamacare,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human services is determinedly plowing forward with its so-called “contraceptive mandate””all private health plans are to cover contraception and sterilization as “preventive services” for women, and the mandate includes individuals and groups with moral or religious objections… . Continue Reading»
Rosh Hashanah began last Thursday evening. For Jews, this two-day holiday celebrates the beginning of a new year, evoking the creation of the world and the dawn of time. It is a holiday of new beginnings, and for this reason fittingly opens ten Days of Awe or High Holy Days, a season of repentance that allows one to make a new beginning in the eyes of God… . Continue Reading»
Recently, I was fortunate to have an engaging conversation with a young, talented, and sincere Christian playwright. We were having a splendid discussion about her new project, when I revealed my lack of sophistication by asking the utterly un-artistic question: “What’s the point?” A graduate of a prestigious art school, she was, of course, ready with an answer… . Continue Reading»
Sometimes, late at night, when the branches of the large pine outside my window are swaying in a hot breeze and brushing with a sinister whisper against my window panes, and sleep seems to loom far above me like some inaccessible peak floating in the cerulean depths of the Himalayan sky, I find myself worrying obsessively about the thylacine and the fossa. What accounts for them? Are they perhaps signs of some cosmic mystery that the sciences will ultimately prove impotent to penetrate? Are they quadrupedal portents of the transcendent? Or are they signs of a physical determinism so absolute as to be indistinguishable from fate? … Continue Reading»
I took a worldview class in college. The professor for the class actually understood worldviews, so rather than mere didactic note-taking on presuppositions we had a healthy dose of cultural participation. Of course, this meant we were held hostage to the professor’s musical horizons, but regardless it was not surprising that the postmodern worldview was introduced by the tunes of Nirvana… . Continue Reading»
Liturgical purists hate them, children’s sermons. I have a friend in New York who positively sneers whenever I mention that, yes, I do children’s sermons. He doesn’t like red barbecue sauce, either, which puts him in a special class of culinary philistines. His critique of children’s sermons is not without merit but, as with barbecue sauce, I have chosen to ignore him… . Continue Reading»
