Think pastors have a stressful job? They’ve got nothing on the music ministry director. (Why are you laughing? Have you ever tried to choose a hymn.) From CNN:You may not think of people who plan, direct and conduct performances for religious services as being under a particularly high amount . . . . Continue Reading »
Back, again, to my primary social concern: Marxism. No surprise there.The first impression of Marxist motives usually leads us to the idea of statism. The principle that Marx proclaimed, that religion is the opiate of the people, sets the church beneath the state. That may seem more Hegelian than . . . . Continue Reading »
I can’t believe we’ve gone the whole day without any of our Lutheran contributors mentioning Reformation Day. (Um, we do have some Lutherans around here, don’t we? Note to self: Get some Lutherans.)Fortunately, one of my fellow Baptists, Timothy George, founding dean of Beeson . . . . Continue Reading »
Yesterday, at a Heritage Foundation-sponsored event here in Washington, D.C., I had the opportunity to hear researcher Christian Smith present findings from his latest batch of research involving his National Study of Youth and Religion project. Whereas the first round of research focused on . . . . Continue Reading »
Give the familiar Spenglerian theme of demographic death and the end of languages, I thought his readers ought to know about a recent essay by linguist John McWhorter, “The Cosmopolitan Tongue: The Universality of English”.He poses the question:What makes the potential death of a . . . . Continue Reading »
David Paul Deavel has a good write-up in Books and Culture of the resurgent interest in G.K. Chesterton. As someone who is attracted to Chesterton’s creative localism and his critiques of modernity (I once called Orthodoxy the most important book for the twenty-first century and write at . . . . Continue Reading »
In a previous post about the new House version of Obamacare, I concluded that the end of life counseling provisions had been improved but could still use further clarification. But I have a concern about assisted suicide in an area not connected to end of life counseling or advance . . . . Continue Reading »
The new House Obamacare bill is in and the criticisms about the end of life counseling issues appear to have been addressed seriously. These are my initial impressions, subject to change. But I must say, it’s better. On page 129, the bill states (with my italics):SEC. 240. . . . . Continue Reading »
On Halloween I am sometimes asked if I believe in ghosts. While accepting that there are “more things in heaven and earth” than Richard Dawkins finds tolerable, I have no strong commitment either way. There is some evidence for something, but it is not obvious what that something is.Are . . . . Continue Reading »
As I may have mentioned earlier, I grew up with Catholics on my mother’s side and the Church of Christ on my father’s side. Not exactly a recipe for happy relations. For the record, the Catholics were more gracious about it. I found the tension painful, difficult, and . . . . Continue Reading »
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