The nice guys at Mere Fidelity put up the podcast in which I was privileged to be invited to discuss the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement (which I oppose). I already wrote about this view here and (especially) here. Here’s the podcast. Read more

When people talk about Joseph Ratzinger, the theologian, what most often goes mentioned is his erudition and his orthodoxy. What always strikes me most about Ratzinger’s writing is his humility, his meekness, his gentleness. There is a softness in the writing style which is incredibly endearing and inviting. Every word is carefully chosen to say just what is meant and not more. Errors are only ever gently rebuked, and not without humor. (There’s a fun passage in Introduction to Christianity where Ratzinger writes (I’m... Read more

I listen to Christmas music basically non-stop during Advent (shut up Advent police) and Christmas. One of the types of music I really like to listen to is the Christmas music of the Red Army Choir. Not just because I like the style of music. But also because the fact that the Red Army Choir now has to make Christmas music to earn lunch money is the delicious honey of sweet, sweet victory. “The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he... Read more

“My center is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking.” – Ferdinand Foch One point I often make is that Christians cannot think of themselves as on the defensive, or losing any kind of “culture” wars, since the Church, as an Army, is assured of the help of the Holy Spirit and of final victory. We need to think of ourselves as conquerors, just as Christ conquered sin and death. Whenever I use the word “feminism” I... Read more

A long time ago, I bought, and read (or “read”) the document known as the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which is pretty much what it says on the tin. One quick-and-dirty thing I did at the time was to go to the book’s index and compare the mentions of the word “solidarity” versus the word “charity.” If memory serves, the ratio is something like 3-to-1 in favor of “solidarity.” My first reaction was to think that this is... Read more

Imagine trying to strike up a conversation with someone at a social function and saying some platitude like, “Nice weather we’re having,” and then having the person angrily jab their finger in your chest and exclaim “GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!” and walk off in a huff. That would be bizarre, wouldn’t it? The reason would not be because the person said anything incorrect, it would be because it is totally unrelated to the matter at hand.... Read more

Every year, I write a thing on the internet telling parents they shouldn’t lie about Santa. Here’s this year’s vintage. The more pushback I get on this, the more I am confirmed in wanting to do it, because my position is so unarguably, self-evidently correct. But while chatting on Twitter I realized there is another good reason for the #AntiSanta lie: it teaches your kids, as a friend incisively put it, “dissent with non-zero social cost.” If you don’t become an accomplice of the... Read more

The release of the new report on CIA torture highlights the peculiar “convenience” of being a Christian: for the Christian, it is utterly irrelevant whether torture works as an intelligence technique or not, because the ends do not justify the means and some acts are so objectively evil that they cannot be moral under any circumstances. For the consistent utilitarian, the use of torture represents a big question mark. For the Christian, not so much. Or is that so? I have watched... Read more

In the post-Cold War world, most people don’t spend too much time thinking about nuclear weapons. But they still exist, and are fearsome. There are still people who are working for a global ban on nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Threat Initiative, an American nuclear security NGO, was gracious enough to invite me along with other religious journalists, to its Vienna conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. The big highlight of the first morning has been a message from... Read more