Conservatives usually complain about government funding of the arts because they see taxpayer money going for art they consider objectionable. That’s not really the point, argues dramatist David Marcus. The real problem with government funding is that it hurts the arts. [Read more…]
Congress stops default & ends shutdown
October 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Cutting it close as usual, on the day before the government would run out of money, Congress agreed to raise the debt ceiling and end the 16-day partial government shutdown. Basically, both sides dropped their demands and kicked the can down the road. The government will be funded until January 15, and the debt limit will rise until February 7. In the meantime, a commission will be appointed to try to resolve the controversies. [Read more…]
Homosexuaity as a social construct
October 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Michael W. Hannon reminds us that postmodernist philosopher Michel Foucault, himself a homosexual, has maintained that homosexuality is a social construct. Until the late 19th century, there was the vice of sodomy, but no one assumed that those who committed it had any kind of special psychology, much less a particular defining identity.
Then again, Foucault believed that virtually everything is a social construct. And even if homosexuality is a social construct, that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. But I’m curious about Foucault’s postmodernist disciples, many of whom are champions of the gay cause. Gay activists seem to take an esssentialist view of homosexuality, that same-sex desire inheres in a gay person’s very nature. But postmodernists tend to deny essentialism in everything else, including the notion that a human being has any kind of fixed identity. So when postmodernists make the arguments that they do, are they just employing rhetoric in the pursuit of power? [Read more…]
Democrats up the ante on default bill
October 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It looked like Congress was close to an agreement on funding the government and avoiding default on Thursday, but negotiations fell apart yesterday. And as Republicans abandoned their insistence on defunding Obamacare, Democrats made demands of their own, insisting that Republicans agree to end the sequester, the across-the-board cuts from last time we were about to go over the fiscal cliff that have actually worked to curb government spending. [Read more…]
Women’s hands & ancient art
October 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Look at your hands. If you are a man, chances are that your ring finger is longer than your index finger. If you are a woman, your ring finger and your index finger are probably about the same length or your index finger is slightly longer. Right? This very minor difference between the sexes was used to determine that the hand-paintings in the caves of Spain–among the earliest art ever discovered–were mostly the work of women.
“Evangelization” and “Evangelism”
October 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Pope Francis has said that he is against “proselytizing.” But he is also speaking on what his predecessor started, the “new evangelization.” After the jump, some of his remarks on the subject. He is advocating “dialogue with those who do not share our beliefs,” which he has been doing, and projecting “God’s mercy and tenderness.” He’s been doing that too. He is talking about “witnessing,” which we often think of as a Protestant term, depending on what is meant by that.
I’m curious if there is a difference between “evangelization” and “evangelism.” And how a Roman Catholic, in particular, for whom church membership is critical, carries out “evangelizing” without “proselytizing.” Can Christians who are not Roman Catholics join in these efforts as he describes them? Also, is the “evangel”–the good news of Christ’s forgiveness won on the Cross–always clear, either in Catholic “evangelization” or Protestant “evangelism”? [Read more…]
Follow Cranach!