Each issue of the admirable ecumenical journal, Touchstone, includes a department called “The Suffering Church.” It’s a title that Catholics of a certain age associate with purgatory; in Touchstone’s vocabulary, however, “the Church suffering” is the Church being purified here and now by persecution. It’s a useful reminder of a hard fact… . Continue Reading »
Americans are disengaging from communities, at least if the evidence proffered by scholars like Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone is to be believed. This may have a class dimension as well. Charles Murray and First Things’ own editor, R.R. Reno, suggest that community is disintegrating more rapidly, and with harsher consequences, among folks in the lower socioeconomic strata in the U.S… . Continue Reading »
Richard John Neuhaus once sardonically noted that Methodism thinks in terms of centuries. The quip captured simultaneously his disenchantment with, deep knowledge of, and, although he might have denied it, continued concern about Mainline Protestant denominations, of which United Methodism is the largest… . Continue Reading »
Last week I was sitting in my office at the chapel when one of our chaplain assistants came in and told me that an Airman was on his way in and wanted to talk with a chaplain. He wanted to know if I was available to see this particular Airman. I said that I was, but inquired further if the Airman expressed any denominational preference. “Did the Airman want to see a particular kind of chaplain?” The chaplain assistant assured me that the in-bound Airman didn’t have a preference; he just wanted to see a chaplain… . Continue Reading »
In 1972, on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Pope Paul VI delivered a sermon that startled the world. Describing the chaos then consuming the post-conciliar Church, he lamented: “From some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God” … Continue Reading »
It’s a common complaint that patristic Trinitarian theology obscured the gospel by relying on the premises and categories of Greek thought. Though rarely as extreme as Adolf von Harnack, who claimed that the Nicene Creed was a symptom of an “acute Hellenization” of the Church, theologians today can put off a recognizably Harnackian scent… . Continue Reading »
The American Principles Project (APP) released an important new report yesterday that marshals data showing a majority of Americans support policies held by social conservatives. The report argues that a unified platform of social and economic conservatism is a winning electoral strategy”though conservatives need to greatly improve their messaging on economic policy and start messaging on social policy… . Continue Reading »
I recently argued that the doctrine of “continuing revelation” held by Latter-Day Saints tends to be read through a progressive lens. In response, many asked whether this view really has significant influence and is worth talking about. This question perplexes me, since anyone at all attentive to the “bloggernacle,” that is, the LDS internet, or to press coverage of LDS affairs, either in the Salt Lake Tribune or in national organs, cannot help but notice the persistent progressive narrative surrounding questions of homosexuality and the status or role of women… . Continue Reading »
Maybe Clark Kent misses them, but I don’t: phone booths. They were a bane in my left-handed life, one of those countless petty irritations left-handed people encounter in a right-handed world. Lots of little things still exist telling me I am left-handed, but only phone booths went out of their way to try and kill me… . Continue Reading »
The Council of the District of Columbia is considering a bill, sponsored by its most aggressively activist gay member, to legalize surrogate child-bearing in your nation’s capital. Infertility is a heart-rending problem. But solving that problem is not what’s at issue here … Continue Reading »
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