Robert T. Miller is one of my favorite First Things contributors. So it is indeed an honor that he would think my post on Richard Dawkins worthy of critique .I am not going to quibble with Miller’s claim that there is a distinction between purpose and function, for I do not think it is . . . . Continue Reading »
David Brooks is a most congenial fellow and as bright as a freshly polished penny. We were both born in Canada, and he grew up in Stuyvesant Town here in New York, which is in my parish. We have given his wry and insightful cultural commentaries, such as Bobos in Paradise , major attention in First . . . . Continue Reading »
Speaking only on my own behalf here, I was quite struck by the carefully balanced sobriety of the International Theological Commission’s (ITC) Report on Limbo, " The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized. "That said, in what follows I will not be defending the . . . . Continue Reading »
Back in October, I wrote in this space about how the Vatican’s International Theological Commission (ITC) was preparing a document on the fate of unbaptized infants that, by some accounts, would say that such infants are saved and enjoy the beatific vision. I noted then that the Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »
We keep pulling¯out of bleak embers¯the objections to the American economic system that were already cold thirty years ago. Recycled from generation to generation, they never seem to pass through the fires of critical thought.For instance:• The people of the United States, 5 percent . . . . Continue Reading »
In his 2006 book, The God Delusion , Richard Dawkins laments the career path of Kurt Wise, who has, since 2006, held the positions of professor of science and theology and director of the Center for Theology and Science at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Prior to . . . . Continue Reading »
We often hear these days about the problems and misdeeds of “organized” religion. We much more rarely hear about the arrogance and downright atrocities of organized irreligion. Yet during the twentieth century, self-proclaimed scientific atheism in the form of communism killed 100 million . . . . Continue Reading »
By withdrawing from the larger culture, homeschoolers aid and abet the culture’s failings—or so, at least, the charge goes. Christians have a responsibility to be not “of the world,” but, we are told, they also have a responsibility to be “in the world.” And therefore . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1967 the great Methodist theologian Paul Ramsey published a book with the above question as its title. It was an incisive critique of aberrations in the ecumenical movement and of the World Council of Churches in particular. Ramsey was fond of observing, with his usual wry grin, that it was an . . . . Continue Reading »
The thirty-six-year-old man from Sunrise, Florida, had years’ worth of sin to unload. As he prepared to make a confession, he wondered where to begin. Finally, he just let it all out:"I have been with women who were married . . . . I have done enough drugs to make Keith Richards . . . . Continue Reading »
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