It’s a Funny Old World 6

July 18, 2014 By David Mills

An historical curiosity from my friend William Tighe, a vast repository of information about European history, including its religious history, and including the odder corners of that. He teaches at Muhlenberg College. Here he’s writing on “British Orthodoxy.” The significance of 1994 is that in that year the Church of England voted to ordain women ministers, to the dismay of its conservative wing I received the little quarterly bulletin/newsletter Anglo-Orthodoxy during the years that it was published, 1982 to 1994. It was... Read more

Andrew Sullivan Makes Up Jesus

July 18, 2014 By David Mills

In yesterday’s Love is Not Love, I quoted William Luse’s explanation of why that popular slogan makes no sense. While explaining this he mentions the once widely known as a gay Catholic journalist Andrew Sullivan’s description of a Jesus who hated rules because he was so loving. The only way to understand the God Who is Love is to set him at odds with the law. As a practitioner of the tactic, Andrew Sullivan was a repeat offender. A case... Read more

The Wise Masked Chicken Speaks on Francis

July 17, 2014 By David Mills

Vocal disappointment with and disapproval of Pope Francis is a line increasingly taken by conservative Catholics, at least those you read on the web. People who were once ardent and uncritical papalists are now making a point of telling others how little they think of the pope they’ve got now — they respect the office, of course, of course, but that doesn’t mean . . . As indeed it doesn’t. But it does call to mind the caterpillar’s line from the... Read more

Love Is Not Love

July 17, 2014 By David Mills

By which the writer, William Luse, means “love” is not love. Writing in Christendom Review, which he edits, he tells of responding to a student who asked him to define love and then having gotten his definition, said “love is love.” No, it’s not, said Bill. The assertion that ‘love is love,’ I went on, is the thing that is “just a perception.” In fact, it’s probably less than that. It’s a deliberate attempt to redefine reality, and is more... Read more

The Fake Commenter’s Form

July 17, 2014 By David Mills

Those of you who have weblogs will know the annoyance of those usually half-literate fake messages used to advertise some product, usually a product few people are likely to buy. They must be produced in countries with a minimum wage measured in pennies and people who took some English in school. I don’t blame them — when you’re poor the integrity of the combox is not something anyone expects you to care about. But the slimeballs who hire people to... Read more

Early Jews Ignoring Early Christians

July 17, 2014 By David Mills

So far, in his reading of the Talmud, writes the literary critic Adam Kirsch, it hasn’t mentioned Christians at all. And then, he explains in his Tablet column, in Tractate Ta’anit appears the word notzrim, a name for Christians derived from Nazareth. The Talmud was written from the third to the fifth century A.D. (he uses C.E., of course) and one would think that the writers would have been concerned with the rising religion. But they weren’t. Kirsch explains: The point of rupture... Read more

What Francis Said

July 16, 2014 By David Mills

A useful resource, giving quotes from Pope Francis on social and economic issues arranged by topic, provided by Catholic Relief Services. Francis is not the master of the snappy soundbite, I admit, but it is good to have his thoughts in this form. Some samples: ♦ We can walk as much as we want, we can build many things, but if we do not profess Jesus Christ, things go wrong. We may become a charitable NGO, but not the Church, the Bride... Read more

The Left’s Rage Against Israel

July 16, 2014 By David Mills

There’s something very ugly in this rage against Israel, argues/notes/reveals/ explains Brendan O’Neil on Spiked! A very large portion of Western liberals sit quietly by when almost any country in the world does something against its neighbors but come unglued when Israel acts against the Palestinians. It would express a double-standard even if one didn’t think Israel had some reason to defend itself from someone crazy enough to fire missiles into the country. “How has this happened?” O’Neil asks. He offers... Read more

Hamas, Israel, the West & Death

July 16, 2014 By David Mills

“Hamas wants to die, obviously and visibly,” writes David P. Goldman, provocatively, as he does, explaining that Hamas Is the Norm, Israel Is the Exception. He begins, darkly: It’s like the old joke: Why do Jewish men die before their wives? Because they want to. Civilizations for the most part die because they no longer want to live. That is the nub of my 2011 book How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying, Too).They cease to believe in their own future... Read more

Books Worth Reading, Unexpectedly Considering the Source

July 16, 2014 By David Mills

“Books a man should read,” especially when the list appears in Esquire, suggests a list of books you probably don’t want to read. You think of men in their thirties and forties of above average intelligence and above average sophistication but with below average morals. You expect a list of smutty books with big ideas. But this list is actually good, judging from the books on it I’ve read (about sixty of the eighty). The compiler’s brief comments will flag... Read more