God, Cosmos, Humankind, and Woman

Last updated on: January 12, 2014 at 11:59 am By Artur Rosman

Before getting totally side-tracked by the silly Zmirak controversy I meant to write about Janet Martin Soskice’s remarkable little collection of essays The Kindness of God. It’s a rare theology book that grabs your attention because it seamlessly connects with your life. In the case of the Soskice book it was the kid(s) yelling in the pews phenomenon in contrast with the ascetical indifference (apatheia) championed by the Fathers of both East (Gregory of Nyssa) and West (Augustine). ... Read more

Burning Heart: On the Augustinian Strand in American Music

Last updated on: January 11, 2014 at 11:31 am By Artur Rosman

“You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” –St. Augustine, Confessions Book 1 (1) I suppose that clip is Augustinian in a Neo-Nebuhrian sort of way. Even if that’s so: GO HAWKS! Read more

How Did the Sexual Revolution Make All Sex Legal, Safe, and Rare?

Last updated on: January 10, 2014 at 2:40 pm By Artur Rosman

As a Rabelaisian Catholic I am obsessed, but not repressed, when it comes to sex. This is the reason why I’m disturbed by the recent trend in the media of presenting people who are coming out about straight-up giving up sex. This trend is especially disturbing among young adults in Japan, as I’ve written here. The matter swung back to my field of attention after reading the interview “Maybe Sex is the Least Fun Thing Two People Can Do?” between... Read more

Apart from… What has Illiberal Catholicism Done for Us?

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 2:44 pm By Artur Rosman

The John Zmirak piece about “Illiberal Catholicism” has proven to be a great catalyst for reflecting about the real historical record of Catholicism. The whole incident reminds me of the epigraph to Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita that comes from Goethe’s Faust: “…and who are you after all? –I am part of the power which forever wills evil and forever works good.” Perhaps in more charitable moments those who only see darkness and ignorance in the history of the Church could also adopt... Read more

Percy's Cosmos, Dolan's Babylonian Captivity, and Kojeve's Last Man

Last updated on: January 7, 2014 at 12:21 pm By Artur Rosman

Pope Francis has an uncanny ability to make the Gospel scandalous. There isn’t enough space here to enumerate all the groups he’s managed to tick off. The most amusingly cretinous reaction to Evangelii Gaudium came from one of our most dangerous illegal alien groups: the ridiculously rich. Kenneth Langone, a man rich enough to make a play at buying the NYSE, was recently quoted as saying he’s having second thoughts about continuing to fund the restoration of St. Pat’s in New... Read more

Lost in the Environment (Rather than Cosmos) of Commercialism

Last updated on: January 5, 2014 at 4:12 pm By Artur Rosman

Lost in the Cosmos is one of those books that you immediately like, even if you don’t quite understand it. It seems to apply to just about everything that’s floating around in your life. Figuring out why it does that is another story. The main thing is that it isn’t an easy satisfaction like a Happy Meal or a Dan Brown book might be. The indirect communication is half the fun of reading Walker Percy. He doesn’t give you easily... Read more

Subversive Orthodoxy Meets the Libertarian Preferential Option for the Rich

Last updated on: January 4, 2014 at 3:07 pm By Artur Rosman

The writing of the last series of post has got me thinking about what I find so irritating about the notion of what’s been alternatively called a Tea Party Catholicism, a Neo-Conservative Catholicism, or a (classical) liberal Catholicism. There’s plenty to be annoyed about besides the fact that these upstart movements subordinate the faith to an economic theory even at the cost of historical truth. Such maneuvers seem so bizarre after 2008, because that was when so many of us became... Read more

Islam Does Not Need a Reformation

Last updated on: January 11, 2015 at 2:41 pm By Artur Rosman

After a little bit of polemic the last few days I’d like to write about something completely different: the much popularized necessity for an Islamic Reformation. When I wrote my complete academic CV up earlier this week I realized that I’ve been either an instructor or a teaching assistant eighteen times during my academic career. Of those courses seven were taught by me as the lead instructor, and eleven as a teaching assistant. [By the way, do let me know... Read more

Contra Zmirak: In Praise of the Inquisition

Last updated on: February 6, 2015 at 9:25 pm By Artur Rosman

WELCOME NOTE: If you’re coming here off a Zmirak link (thanks for the free publicity John!) note that this isn’t a ringing endorsement of the Inquisition, but a setting straight of the record about what it was actually doing and how much (exponentially less) damage it caused (than the black myths would have you believe). I know this is a sophisticated distinction that you’re not likely to catch if you’re reading Zmirak to start with, but can you blame me for... Read more

The Pope’s Sympathy for the Devil

Last updated on: December 1, 2015 at 1:39 pm By Artur Rosman

The pope’s resurrection of Devil talk is one of the most appealing aspects of his style to me, because, hell, I’m a fan. The biggest surprise of On Heaven and on Earth, the book-length dialogue between Cardinal Bergoglio and Rabbi Skorka, came pretty early in the book. The second chapter is called “On the Devil.” In it Bergoglio says the following: Jesus defines [Satan] as the Father of Lies, and the book of Wisdom says that sin entered the world through the Devil’s... Read more