Just got a comment quoting a sentence from an item and saying “This sentence needs fixed.” (It’s a Scottish construction often used in Pittsburgh and maybe other places.) One’s not inclined to take writing advice from someone who says “needs fixed.” Which the sentence didn’t, by the way. Read more
We (Patheos Catholic bloggers) have been instructed to feature older material in order to better enjoy Christmas and the end of the year, since fewer people read weblogs this time of year, which is good news. In reading through old items for a different purpose, I found five on Ayn Rand that seemed worth repeating, given how many supposedly conservative people have become disciples of hers. Any Rand’s Fiction Two quotes posted by friends on Facebook: Douglas Minson points to a short... Read more
A contribution to the description of a movement among politically conservative Catholics I described in two columns for Aleteia, Free Market Catholics Are Losing Their Faith (in Capitalism) and The New Catholic Economics, National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru explaining to a reviewer for the Jesuit weekly America that “I aspire to put ‘Catholic’ before ‘conservative’ in my life.” “I would say that Catholicism has made me a little softer in my politics,” he says in the interview. Since becoming Christian, I’ve... Read more
Interesting and useful: 8 Maps That Will Change the Way You Look at Africa. The site explains: Africa is on the cusp of one of the most significant demographic shifts in human history. Now home to 1.11 billion people, the continent is projected to more than double in population over the next 35 years, while growth elsewhere slows (parts of Asia, Latin America) and even reverses (Western Europe, Japan). But without economic growth that’s fairly distributed, most of the kids born there... Read more
In response to Speaking to Jews, New Testament scholar Leroy Huizenga writes on Twitter: “My late mentor Don Juel preferred Scriptures of Israel. I rather like it as a descriptor. Would use OT normatively.” I don’t think this settles the problem I raised any better than “Hebrew Bible,” but it’s another alternative we should consider. Leroy is chairman of the department of theology at the University of Mary. Here is his personal website. Read more
Hysterical and absolutely accurate: Father James Martin’s reconstruction of email discussions about his writing, What’s THAT supposed to mean? For example: Me: I love Jesus. Father Martin, with all due respect, I don’t mean to be critical, particularly to a priest, but I am compelled to point out that in your most recent post, you didn’t say “Jesus Christ.” As you know, Christ, from the Greek word Christos, meaning the Anointed One (years ago, all Jesuits understood Greek, but perhaps no longer), is the... Read more
Two good tweets from Arthur Brooks (@arthurbrooks), the president of the American Enterprise Institute: What is best for the free enterprise system as a whole is often not what the most powerful enterprises would prefer. and It’s ironic that many blast Washington politicians by saying they’re “anti-business.” Many are very pro-business — but anti-competition. While I’m at it, two more on a different subject: Millennials are not down for bureaucracy: The share of the federal workforce under 30 drops to... Read more
Do not ask someone who might be Jewish if he’s “a Jew.” I would have thought that obvious but apparently it isn’t, according to Stuff Christians Say that Makes Jewish People Cringe by Aaron Abramson, who is Jewish and believes in Jesus. When that term is used to label someone, my mind conjures up images of surly Dickensian characters like Oliver Twist’s Fagin. Pejorative references throughout history have loaded this word with too much baggage. Calling someone a “Jew” or “Jewess” is... Read more
Not directly, of course. Responding to yesterday’s Joel Osteen, Gosh, my friend Kevin Flaherty, head of the New York G. K. Chesterton Society (in the picture, that’s Kevin to the right with the bag), writes: “As G. K. Chesterton said in The Everlasting Man, ‘A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it’.” In contrast, a respondent to the item insisted that Joel Osteen is very motivational and he preaches a message of empowerment... Read more
Not a shock: megachurch celebrity tv star preacher Joel Osteen doesn’t know the Bible, reports the clever and energetic Tristyn Bloom of The Daily Caller. (The story’s several weeks old but I just saw it so pass it on for those of you who hadn’t.) In a Monday post to his verified Facebook page, Joel Osteen ministries, read: “God said in Numbers 11:23, ‘Moses, is there any limit to My power?’ He was saying, ‘Moses, you saw Me part the Red Sea,... Read more
David Mills
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