A while back, I posted a link to the talk that I gave about gender dysphoria at last year’s Q conference. In that talk, I mention my own experiences with gender fluidity, and specifically the effect of hormonal shifts during pregnancy. A reader asked if I could elaborate on that, and wondered whether I had ever considered treating my dysphoria using estrogen/progesterone supplements in order to make myself feel more consistently feminine. So first of all, “gender fluid” is often... Read more
Today, while watching a horde of crazy children, trying to conquer the laundry monster, and providing seemingly non-stop milk-on-tap to a toddler who thinks sitting on my head is a great nursing position, I’ve also been defending the zombie genre on FaceBook. Because, you know, one does. I’m not only a horror fan, I’m also a horror writer. I even wrote a somewhat ridiculous Platonic dialogue about the ethics of having one’s face devoured by the undead. I like zombies.... Read more
Every Lent I try to come up with something interesting and fruitful to do apart from the standard giving up video-games/sweets/alcohol type mortifications. This year I’ve been thinking a lot about the divisions within the Church. Basically, since Vatican II we’ve seen absolutely astonishing gains in terms of reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants – but at the same time, we’ve seen a growing, increasingly fraught divide between “liberal” and “conservative” Christians. It seems to me, then, that this new threat... Read more
This week we witnessed the very sudden decline and fall of Milo Yiannopoulos as an interview he gave in which he praised pederasty came to light, and the curious spectacle of pro-life/pro-family leaders standing up to defend him in public. I want to open by saying that I actually have sympathy for Milo. My reasons for this are very simple: he is a human being. As my sister put it, “nobody should stand outside the circle of sympathy.” So long... Read more
Several years ago, I was involved in a frustrating and interminable exchange about Catholic sexual morality over e-mail. At some point in the conversation my interlocutor sent me a copy of the entire chapter of the Catechism that covers the sixth commandment, heavily highlighted to show the errors in my position. I recall reading it and being not so much alarmed as angry. I had read that chapter dozens of times, and yet the text that I was now reading... Read more
Several years ago I entered into correspondence with someone who, it seemed at the time, really just needed a friend, someone who would offer unconditional love. Since I am generally for friendship and kindness, I was happy to try to offer that person what they needed. Over the course of several months, the relationship seemed to take one bizarre turn after another. My correspondent expected me to write every day, and if I didn’t then they got very angry. They... Read more
Several years ago, I wrote a piece for First Things where I opined that a lot of the fear and anger that the religious right feels about LGBTQ rights and the sexual revolution is basically derived from grief. The world that people knew is gone. The values they grew up with are no longer valued by society at large. Moral precepts that were taken for granted as the bedrock of society have been dismantled. Unborn children are being slaughtered daily,... Read more
Yesterday I read a comment by 3vil5triker on my post Is Heaven for Real? My response ended up being much longer than comment length, so here it is. 3vil5triker writes: How come the original accounts, and the beliefs that derive from them, are not subject to the same kind of skeptical inquiry? Can you really say that the early church accounts and assurances of heaven were not bolstered and encouraged by similar financial, societal and religious incentives of the time?... Read more
Colton Burpo, the boy featured in the story Heaven is for Real, is a child who is supposed to have been whisked away on a whirlwind tour of heaven during surgery when he was three. For over a week now, an older article about his story has been trending on Patheos. While I don’t know what sparked the new wave of enthusiasm, I do know that I think people need to be cautious with this kind of story. My reasons are... Read more
There are basically three reasons I know of why a person is likely to be pro-life. The first is a devotion to traditional sexual ethics, and in particular a commitment to the patriarchal nuclear family as the ideal for human society. Within this worldview, abortion is wrong because it takes the life of a child — but also because it does away with the consequences sex and enables feminism. The second is a nationalist ethic in which abortion is wrong... Read more
Catholic Authenticity
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