On the Square Today

R.R. Reno on the Christmas conspiracy :

God does not call out sin and death to meet them on a grand battlefield. He undertakes a covert action, as it were, entering into human history by stealth as the child of a humble young woman who gives birth in a stable. Undercover, the lord of all foments a conspiracy of life from  within  the regime of sin and death. God does not follow what might be called the theological Powell doctrine (which, for those who remember the first Iraq war of 1990-91, involves a commitment to overwhelming force). That’s a good thing, because if it were the divine strategy, any realistic person will have to conclude that God has yet to marshal his forces. No, the way of love is different. It conquers from the inside out.

Also today, Brett Bertucio on Christmas and the scandal of particularity :

Why does modernity have this visceral reaction to religious particularity? We often hear an explanatory narrative involving coexistence in a pluralistic society or the sad truth that religious differences have sparked violent conflict. I would propose another explanation—that our humanity is often subject to an aversion to particularity, especially as regards the deepest questions of the heart. In the eyes of modern man, completely inculcated with the Baconian assumption that “knowledge is power,” for the truth to  take us  is frightening. The realization of particularity is terrifying, for it implies a commitment. It implies that my freedom and affections be moved toward an object that is totally  other  and therefore beyond my control.