Echo Chambers Leave Us too Weak to Fight Idols and Bullies

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Since they seem to be recurring themes in my life and my writing, last week I had occasion to again contemplate idols and idolatry and also the way bullies operate. Both idols and bullies play with our psyche, of course, and can do great damage. They are like germs and bacteria that bring disease and [...]

Digital Field of the Lord: Hoeing the Rows, for the Seeds

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In my my first reaction to Benedict’s announcement yesterday, I wrote: Listening to some of the inanities coming out of the mouths of cable news anchors, and noting the way they are quickly, predictably, focusing on the “negative narratives” — one voice on cable anchor is making it sound like the church has just endured [...]

“Life, Death, Truth, Governance, Morality, Pheeeh! So What?”

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My column at First Things today looks at the remarkable, innovative new theme in our discourse: The repeated thesis was simply this: “so what?” Such a disarming question; the sort of question society has long-regarded as adolescent, arrogant, disdainful, and yes, more than a little snotty. It is a question that conveys a dare in [...]

Pastor Louie Giglio and the Chill Wind of Correctness

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(image courtesy of Shutterstock.com) Considering the wide media attention accompanying the announcement that laywoman Myrlie Evers-Williams and Atlanta-based preacher Louie Giglio would offer prayers at President Obama’s upcoming inaugural, Giglio’s withdrawal from the podium just two days later garnered little notice outside of Evangelical circles, but it is a story that deserves some attention. So, [...]

I Won’t Label You; You Won’t Negate Me – UPDATED

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Continuing what has become and an unintended pattern, I continue with my every-other-week-Apocalypse, exclusively at First Things! Two weeks ago, I was saying, “We will have to become, ourselves, the reality we want to see. . .Let us begin, finally, to understand the true meaning of apocalypse by becoming it—not destruction and mayhem but revelation, [...]

Does Church Suppress God’s Will? That’s Wicked, Right?

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Like Mark Shea, I too thought the National Catholic Reporter had endorsed female ordination years ago. I actually had no intention of writing about it for my First Things column, today. Yet somehow — and though I had intended to write more about Calah Alexander and the idea of a Ministry of Succor to young [...]

Resurrected Messianic Obama and “Being Apocalypse” – UPDATED

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An interesting resurrection is taking place: the re-emergence of the Messianic Obama theme from the tomb to which it had been consigned. It began rather modestly, with the release of The Gospel According to Apostle Barack. But that was a mere gospel. Jamie Foxx then upped the ante by referring (ironically?) to “our Lord and [...]