George Will reviews The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch. They argue that, what with our new technology and all, libertarianism will inevitably become the dominant political and economic ideology: “Confirmation bias” is the propensity to believe news that confirms our beliefs. Gillespie and Welch say that “existence bias” disposes us to believe that things that exist always will. The authors say that the most ossified, sclerotic sectors… Read more
Schism in Lutheran charities
August 4, 2011 By Gene Veith
128 Comments
The Associated Press has a good and remarkably objective story on how the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) is stopping its co-operation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in military chaplaincy and charity work. From journalist Rachel Zoll: The latest casualty of the long-running Protestant conflicts over the Bible and homosexuality is a massive network of social service agencies that work in areas ranging from adoption to disaster relief. The theologically conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod announced this week… Read more
Alaska report
August 3, 2011 By Gene Veith
4 Comments
As I said we’d be, we are in Alaska. This land is vast. This one state is a fifth the size of all of the others put together. It’s not only the northernmost state and the westernmost state, it is the easternmost state, since some of the Aleutian islands stretch into the Eastern hemisphere. And much of this land is virtually inaccessible. If you look at a road atlas of Alaska, you will see one red highway like an artery… Read more
9.5 Theses on the Emergent Church
August 3, 2011 By Gene Veith
136 Comments
In the tradition of someone else, Wheaton professor David Milliner has posted 9.5 Theses against the Emergent Church (that variety of the church growth movement that tries to be postmodernist). Here are some of them: 1. I’ll say it again: He who marries the spirit of the age will soon become a widower. Do those who married postmodernity realize their spouse is in a nursing home? 1.5 Christians who cater their theology to accommodate deconstruction are comparable to sub-rate CCM… Read more
Satan sandwich with a side of Satan fries
August 3, 2011 By Gene Veith
68 Comments
The debt compromise had two groups of people who are normally polar opposites agreeing with each other at long last. The measure was opposed by both those who are really conservative and those who are really liberal. Here is what the latter are saying (lover of colorful metaphors that I am, I have to salute the imagery of “Satan sandwich”): Dispirited liberals fumed Monday over the deal to raise the debt ceiling that would cut deeply across the government,… Read more
Stayover relationships
August 2, 2011 By Gene Veith
86 Comments
Living together out of wedlock is still something like marriage. Too much like it, apparently for an increasing number of couples today. The latest trend sees living together as too much of a commitment, as too permanent. So cohabitation is giving way to “stayover relationships”: More couples in long-term relationships are choosing to stay over a few nights per week at each other’s home instead of cohabitating, a university study has concluded. University of Missouri PhD student Tyler Jamison conducted… Read more
The “hobbits” vs. Mordor
August 2, 2011 By Gene Veith
32 Comments
Did you hear about how former Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been mocking the Tea Party folks as “hobbits”? He apparently never read Lord of the Rings. The lowly hobbits ended up defeating the unlimited government of Mordor. And, according to Marc Thiessen, this is what happened in the debt reduction battle: How the Tea Party ‘hobbits’ won the debt fight – The Washington Post. I think the Tea Party folks should drop the Boston harbor revolutionary label. They… Read more
And now non-visible art
August 2, 2011 By Gene Veith
48 Comments
A major trend in the 20th and 21st century art world has to become ever more “minimalist.” As artists have tried to achieve the least possible gesture that could be called art–going from representations to idealizations to reductions to basic forms to pure forms to color fields to lines to found objects–they arrived at “conceptual art,” in which there is no art at all, just the idea for the art. Museums and art buyers can purchase and display the notes… Read more
God’s approval ratings
August 1, 2011 By Gene Veith
14 Comments
The most breathtakingly presumptuous opinion poll of all time: More than half of U.S. voters approve of God’s job performance, according to a new poll, making God more popular than all members of Congress. The poll — which was conducted by the Democratic research firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) — surveyed 928 people and found that 52 percent of Americans approved of God’s overall dealings, while only 9 percent disapproved. Questions about God were asked as part of a larger… Read more
Deal on the debt
August 1, 2011 By Gene Veith
84 Comments
Democratic and Republican leaders came to an agreement on raising the debt limit, looking to forestall the government from going into default on Tuesday. But first both sides have to sell the agreement to their Congressmen and to their base. Basically, the Republicans gave in to the Democrats’ desire for a two year provision, while Democrats gave in to the Republican’s desire for spending cuts without tax increases. Here are some more details from the Associated Press story: Details apparently… Read more
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