We can learn from Athens, but Athens would be wise to pause and realize that she needs Jerusalem too. Paganism and Christianity have not always gotten along. When either group is given state power, both have fallen for the temptation of persecuting their enemies. Still, good pagans could speak the truth as Saint Paul witnesses and Christians owe a debt to high pagans like Heraclitus and Plato for creating a vocabulary in the Greek language that helped explain God’s revelation to... Read more
CS Lewis wrote an outstanding introduction to Medieval thought in The Discarded Image. Perhaps we should recover a piece of that image. We can begin by ending what Lewis labels “chronological snobbery,” but since his time has become “chronological bigotry.” He was attacking the disposition of some in his time to think new ideas were automatically better than old ideas. Today one is more likely to meet people who assume all old ideas are false or (at best) useless. One need... Read more
My birthplace was just outside of Chicago, a fact for which I have always felt a degree of shame. How could I be born outside of West Virginia? Yet it is so . . .and I sometimes find it hard to recall just which of the towns around Chicago heard my first whine. Still, all my life, Chicago people have been important in my life. Phillip E. Johnson changed my life and he was born and raised in Aurora near where... Read more
The pagan Greeks were wise. They knew that life was tough and then you die. The gods used us for entertainment and then did not die. The problem from the gods’ point of view is that people might see this truth and quit. People who mope in despair are not entertaining. So when they unleashed evil on the the world, they included hope. Hope was a cheat and a fraud. And if you think about it, most of what people... Read more
About now colleges start begging for attention as the business of higher education cranks up. For parents, the entire process is confusing, expensive, and can be discouraging. When you add the choices for education before college: homeschool? government school? private school? a religious based private school? What to do? At that point, people ask experts for advice and when I am asked I think of Theages. He wasn’t my student, but in the book with his name on it, his... Read more
I loved the film Star Wars from the start, because it was fun and too much of 1970’s film making was childish (looking at you post-Walt Disney Company) or “serious.” If you wanted a fairy tale, you were out of luck if you were over the age of eight and by the late seventies I was in high school. Yet the line that took me from someone who liked a movie to a fan was: “Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re our... Read more
Some events are not for adults. Trick-or-Treating door to door is one of those things. Don’t do it. It’s good to have things that kids do that grownups do not. Somehow (maybe in the 1950’s?) we decided that many enjoyable activities were just for kids and adults should not. By the time the kill joys were done, “adult entertainment” was vice. We watched while the kids had fun or we would slink off to do things nobody should do and call it “adult.” Walt... Read more
If your pastor’s sermon doesn’t cry out for note taking, then you need a new pastor. The truth is simple and simple ideas are the hardest to understand. You can think about two words, say “amazing grace,” all your life and a good pastor is there to help. Father Richard is a good pastor. Today the Gospel reading was the story Jesus told about a rich man who woke up dead. Waking up is what all the dead do, the... Read more
Those that support Donald J. Trump for President of the United States should rejoice. I did not think he could possibly win the primaries (how could he?) and four years ago I thought Mitt Romney would win. Now that I am sure Donald Trump has lost, he will stage a miraculous comeback. But what if he does not? If he does not win, then Hillary Clinton will be President. Since one of the reasons I was happy President Obama was... Read more
George Bernard Shaw, a workmanlike writer who offended all the right people, had a play open in New York City on this day in 1905 that dealt with prostitution “frankly.” If the play had not been closed the next day, nobody would recall this mediocrity, but banned it was. Why? It offended public morals. Note that it was banned for commercial production to which the general public was seduced into paying for an amoral sermon with the lie that is... Read more
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