Seven Quick Takes (6/11/10)

Today, I’m moving to Washington DC for my summer internship and the packing and preparations for said trip are the reason the blog’s been dark this week (and probably next as well). After my first week on the job, though, I’ll be starting regular posts, beginning with a discussion of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity (the first apologetic work I ever read).

 

And speaking of the move, I’m still trying to attend Mass every week, so I’d be grateful for any church recommendations in the DC area. I can’t drive, so ideally, any church would be within walking distance of a bus or metro stop.

 

This NYT article on Sweden’s efforts to get more men to take paternity leaves is a great example of government using its power to shape culture for good. Aside from the obvious good of parents spending more time with their children, apparently divorce rates are falling. 

 

Also in the NYT, I was delighted to see a feature in the Beliefs column on my friend Eve Tushnet. Eve was the first person I met who treated religion as something that shapes her, rather than the other way around. I have complained previously about the unwillingness of liberal theists to recognise that an actual god might ask something that doesn’t jibe with our sense of fairness or morality and could nonetheless be right. Although I disagree with Eve about the existence of her god, I don’t try to refute her merely because the moral code she is required to follow doesn’t match my moral intuitions.

A number of my liberal Christian friends are excited about the news that a group of Catholics have declared union busting to be a mortal sin. As the daughter of two teachers, I’m fairly pro-union, but this kind of thing always seems excessive to me. It feels like people twisting theology to make sure that their pet issue is recognized. Mortal sin, venial sin, or just plain secular wrong, the point is that you oughten’t do it. The specific hierarchy of erring feels less important.