My fellow Patheos blogger Roger Olsen has written an eloquent critique of President Trump’s desire for a border wall and of walls in general. Throughout, he cites a recurring line from Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall”: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” But
Bach wrote liturgical music and choir cantatas built around hymns and Biblical texts. But he also wrote “secular” music and purely instrumental compositions. Some critics try to play those off against each other, to the point of maintaining that Bach was only “free” when he
The far left wing of the Democratic-controlled Congress has been pushing something called the Green New Deal. As a proposal to deal with climate change and other environmental issues, it has been around for awhile, particularly in Europe. But this Congressional proposal being championed by
Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, a conservative and a Trump supporter, gave an answer to Mitt Romney’s critique of the president. But in doing so, Carlson made an impassioned case that both parties’ preoccupation with economic growth is ignoring the plight of ordinary Americans. In
The song we’ve been learning over the Christmas season by singing it every service is “All My Heart Again Rejoices,” another stunning hymn by the great Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676). We blogged about his advent hymn for Christmas (see “Love Caused Your Incarnation”). So now let’s
We now have a divided government (shut down though it be), as Democrats took power in the House of Representatives yesterday. But that is only one of the divisions shaping up for 2019. Divided Government Republicans still hold the Senate and the Presidency, but the
I stumbled across an interesting account of a long-running debate between the Reformed neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth and the Catholic theologian Erich Przywara on the issue of “the analogy of being.” It contains this wonderful line: “In the charmed phrase of German theologian Christian Link, God
I missed Holy Innocents Day on December 28, which commemorates King Herod’s slaughter of the infants of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16-18) in a vain attempt to kill the Christ child! This has become a day in the church year to reflect on the evil of abortion in
The custom on this blog on New Year's Day is for readers to predict what they think will happen over the course of the year ahead. Then, once the year is over, on or around the next New Year’s Eve, we will revisit those predictions and see who made the best one.
How felicitous it is that the secular holiday New Year’s Day is also the day of the church year dedicated to the Name of Jesus! Beginning the year in the name of Jesus is quite appropriate. On the seventh day after His birth (hence, seven
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