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“By Any Means Necessary”

October 1, 2018 By Gene Veith

“By any means necessary.” This phrase, originating with Jean-Paul Sartre and made famous by Malcolm X, has become a slogan for the hard left. It now has wider currency. I heard it last weekend from a sportscaster. It even has an acronymn, BAMN, that you’ll see on lots of protest signs. “By any means necessary” means that the end justifies the means, that the goal–racial justice, women’s liberation, gay rights, the revolution, etc.–is of such importance and all-commanding moral significance… Read more

The Continuing Protestant Legacy in Education

September 28, 2018 By Gene Veith

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Martin Luther invented universal education–for boys and girls of all social classes–and he started institutions to provide it. Ever since, Protestantism has promoted education–among the urban poor of the 19th century, on the mission fields, and in Christian schools today. Now a British researcher has found that this Protestant emphasis on education is a cultural influence that persists to this day, even in seemingly secularized societies. He found that countries with a Protestant background continue to have higher education rates… Read more

Yoga in Public Schools

September 27, 2018 By Gene Veith

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The Atlantic has an article about the growing use of yoga in the curriculum of public schools, even though some people are against it. The implication is that doing yoga for gym class is “progressive” and that the opposition consists mostly of Christians who are worried that the Hindu practice conflicts with their religious beliefs. But if schools are prohibited from including Christian practices why aren’t they prohibited from including practices from other religions? From Alia Wong, Why Schools Are Banning… Read more

The Middle Ages Were the Age of Reason; Ours Is the Age of Faith

September 25, 2018 By Gene Veith

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I enjoy it when conventional wisdom gets turned upside down. A good example appeared in The Federalist last week: David Breitenbeck’s Why Our Day Is Far More Religious Than The Middle Ages Was. As someone who has studied Medieval philosophy and read St. Thomas Aquinas, I can attest that if ever there was an “Age of Reason,” it was the Middle Ages. Whereas hardly anyone today, outside of those who are classically educated, knows anything about logic. Read the whole essay, following… Read more

The Theology of Being “Pro-Choice”: Demanding the Attributes of God

September 24, 2018 By Gene Veith

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God is a different kind of being than what we are. That should be obvious. But some people today want to be God, to the point of demanding to have the attributes of God. Those who are “pro-choice,” for example–that is, pro-abortion–are not content to “play God” by giving mothers the sovereign power to determine the life or death of their children. They are actually insisting that they should have the same freedom that God has. So observed the late… Read more

Are Adults Still Responsible for What They Did as Minors?

September 21, 2018 By Gene Veith

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The Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh is in jeopardy after accusations that when he was a 17-year-old high school student, 36 years ago, he committed sexual assault at a drunken party by jumping on top of a 15-year-old girl and trying to take off her clothes before he was knocked off of her by a friend. Now the question has been whether or not this actually happened. What I find fascinating is that an adult is being held… Read more

The Catholic Sex-Abuse Scandal Is Bigger Crisis Than the Reformation?

September 20, 2018 By Gene Veith

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The priest sex-abuse scandal is the biggest crisis to hit the Roman Catholic church since the Reformation. I’ve heard that thought expressed by a number of people. It contains a lot of truth, but it also has some misconceptions. Far from being bad for the Church, the Reformation was good for the Church, including the Catholic church. In fact, a “reformation” is exactly what the Catholic church needs in order to deal with this scandal. First of all, I commend… Read more

Saul Alinsky’s 13 Rules for Radicals

September 19, 2018 By Gene Veith

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Saul Alinsky was a left-wing activist in the 1960s and 1970s whose “community organizing” was influential to subsequent political agitators, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. His book Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals gives his tactics for dealing with opponents and seizing political power. Rich Logis has written a fascinating piece in at The Federalist entitled How Democrats Are Using Saul Alinsky’s Smear Tactics Against Brett Kavanaugh. (It was written before the #MeToo allegations against Kavanaugh from his high school… Read more

How Religious Are You?

September 18, 2018 By Gene Veith

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Pew Research has come up with a different way of classifying American religion. Instead of looking at broad categories (evangelicals, Catholics, mainline Protestants), or affiliations (denominations, religions), it has drawn up a “typology” based on how religious a person is, along with some other descriptors. I know, there are problems with this. But the Pew study based on these categories has some interesting findings. First, here are the seven categories: The Highly Religious (1) Sunday Stalwarts. These are the people who… Read more