Let me recount some of the ways in which we modern Christians are confused: We are still trying to apply categorical reasoning to creatures and relationships in a world of evolutionary and developmental processes. We have no way, even in principle, of saying which of our ancestors was the first creature to fall into the … [Read more…]
I’ve claimed that we can see the world, at least after Jesus Christ’s ascension to His Father, as being the story of the growth and development of the Body of Christ, including the evolution and development of the organs of that Body. We can read the main purposes of God as Creator out of this … [Read more…]
Many modern Christians can’t understand why a distinguished man of letters, Vladimir Nabokov, would have written a novel about a man attracted to girls just before adolescence or perhaps just entering that ripening of sexual nature. The answer is as clear as the glorification of Mel Gibson’s gory movie, The Passion of the Christ. We … [Read more…]
Recently, I wrote still another post, prophesying into a vacuum of sorts, in which I explored some of the dangers of assuming that Christians, or any others with strong moral beliefs, can enter fully into shared medical insurance programs or even basic medical systems with those who hold differing moral beliefs. That essay, Through the … [Read more…]
The bishops of the American Catholic Church are upset with President Obama’s mandate that all participants in regulated health-care programs should have coverage for contraceptives, abortions, and perhaps some other services and products considered immoral by Catholics and many others. But this Catholic layman has a question: What right have the bishops to object in … [Read more…]
In an essay I recently posted to this blog, Let’s Hear It for Amateurs, That Is, for Lovers, I used a quote from The Liberal Mind by Kenneth Minogue, to argue along a slightly different line than Professor Minogue had intended. This is the quote from The Liberal Mind which was the beginning of my … [Read more…]
Not one to accept the mishmash of ideas which is the modern worldview, Professor Minogue reminds us: A free State is one in which there is a strong resistance to professionalization; it is marked by that “versatility” which Pericles claimed for Athens. [page 150] This is not to argue that professionalization is bad. Minogue was … [Read more…]
I’m still dealing with the intellectual aftermath of Kenneth Minogue’s The Liberal Mind. In that book, he tells us: War is habit-forming, and peace is confusing to many people who cannot deal with conflicting standards and feelings of guilt. [page 111] I’m aware of others who made comments about the eerie and morally disedifying attractiveness … [Read more…]
Here’s a good and short article by a clearheaded thinker, Ivan Eland: Pro-Business vs. Pro-Market: What’s the Difference?. I think a similar point can be made about the political marketplaces. This is to say that there are those politicians who would govern, that is organize certain types of human activities conducive to a fuller human … [Read more…]
Preface This entry is the core of a larger work. It’s sketchy and incomplete but possibly worth the read. Introduction In the Gospel of St. John, we read: As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he … [Read more…]