We have said before that in this meal we are being knit together into the body of Christ, muscle and bone, sinew and tendon, joint and marrow. But too many Christians have reversed the order in this, wanting doctrinal assent or understanding to be the thing that knits us together, so that we may then …
Focus on the Family, Ralph Reed, World Magazine, Jack Abramoff, and Me
Lord Acton nailed it when he said that power corrupts. James Madison knew that if men were angels they would not need to be governed the way they actually have to be governed. C.S. Lewis made a similar point when he said that he was a democrat, not because each man is a repository of …
Dat Old Debbel Nepotism
One of the features of conservatism in Christendom (to be distinguished from right wing sentiments) is a deep suspicion of the objectivity that modernity pretends to have. Postmodern thinkers have recently emphasized “the particular,” but they have done so as rootless reactionary modernists, as opposed to the earlier critiques of modernity mounted by rooted Christians …
The Time of Reformation
The work of Christ on the cross was a work unlike any other in history. One powerful aspect of what He accomplished was the once for all nature of His atonement. He, unlike His shadows in the Old Testament, did not have to repeat His work over and over again. Even that which was a …
Pagan Tug of War
“This situation has stolen up upon us so quietly that its real nature is largely obscured. I believe that what Camille Paglia, provocatrice extraordinaire, has said with respect to our pop culture is correct. We are witnessing, she asserts, ‘an eruption of the never-defeated paganism of the West.’ Her thesis, which she developed in some …
The Pudding That Proves
“According to a popular mythology in more conservative circles, the nineteenth century was a time of strong traditional values, when it was actually a monkey house of radicalism. The traditional values, such as they were, were the harvest of what had been planted in previous centuries — vestiges of Christendom. But the crop that was …
The Cornerstone of our Calendar
Gracious Father and Lord of heaven, we thank You for family, for our husbands and wives, for our children and grandchildren. We thank You that You brought us safely through another week, and that You have enabled us to stand now on the threshold of another week. We are so grateful for the Lord’s Day, …
Pastiche Personality
“The pastiche personality of the baby boomer, a personality suckled on rock music and television during the postwar years, is the major force behind the redrawing of the religious landscape in America today . . . Among the boomers inside and outside the church . . . there is a hunger for religious experience but …
Muddling About
“But studied neutrality is impossible, and obnoxious examples are cropping up more and more frequently, in fulfillment of a collegial application of the dictim that a man who doesn’t stand for something will fall for anything. We now find the Zeitgeist appearing in raunchy requirements for classes, ‘revivals’ that resemble group therapy confessionals, and urbane …
All Over the Map
One of the problems that Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox share is the problem of ignorance of patristic literature. Because of this ignorance, the subject (which is theologically and theoretically important to RCs and EOs) can be used to cudgel (of course in a friendly way) those Protestants for whom the subject does not rise to …