Irony has been essential in the rise of Donald Trump. I’ve written about it before, but since my word lacks force, you need only ask The Washington Post and NPR (we can even throw in Breitbart for good measure). Irony is negative in function; it establishes distance from an object and allows one to then tear it apart. It’s a way of exposing hypocrisy, simultaneously undoing the thing criticized and raising up the one doing the criticizing. It does not... Read more
The other day I wrote a reflection entitled, maybe too simply, “Humility.” I took about a thousand words to fail to capture just how deeply discomforting it is to be stuck between two warring worlds: “everyday folk” and the intelligentsia. That dichotomy might seem a bit stark for some: not every disadvantaged person hates the academy and not every academic or intellectual despises the farmers of the Midwest or the urban poor, but as a sketch, it’s functional. Lots of... Read more
I am sandwiched between two worlds. It’s very uncomfortable. On the one hand, I’ve long found a certain pride in where I come from. I like that most members of my family speak English not just with accents but in ways most “educated” people would say are simply incorrect: “I says,” “Yous guys,” “alls I mean.” There’s an earthiness to it, a simplicity I admire and have known all my life. There’s much to respect in a man and a... Read more
Look at your average internet comment box and you’re in for a treat. Take, for example, a few stand-outs from the Washington Post’s piece on the slow, but seemingly steady, fading away of liberal Protestant Churches that I wrote about a few days ago: Craig Reynolds 1/5/2017 6:44 PM EST Modern life is hard and the rigor required to find a way through it is tiring. Then at the end, you face the three doors of oblivion or uncertainty or... Read more
A piece online today at the Washington Post links “liberal” theology to declines in church membership while observing the opposite trend in “conservative” congregations. In it, the author, David Millard Haskell, presents his research as overturning older theories that “getting with the times” might revivify religious life in the 21st century: For example, we found 93 percent of clergy members and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches agreed with the statement “Jesus rose from the dead with a real... Read more
Silence might be the most Catholic thing I have ever seen. To truly justify that, I’d need to spoil the film. I won’t, but I’ll say what I can, try to express its impact on me without reflecting the content of the images I saw. I have not read Endo’s novel, though I’ve heard about it many times along my journey to the Faith. The decision of the (at minimum culturally) Catholic Martin Scorsese to direct its film version excited... Read more
Although here at Patheos Catholic we have a few different Eastern bloggers (Henry Karlson and Justin Tse to name the two besides me), I recently realized that no one has devoted time to a post explaining the exact terminology that properly describes Eastern Catholicism. Recently, I’ve met quite a few Latin Catholics, who, though confused, were interested in learning more, and so thought I’d produce a very basic primer on appropriate terms and descriptors, so as to avoid the faux... Read more
Self-Interest gets spoken about quite a bit these days, whether in its economic or political form. And even when it’s not being invoked in the name of Adam Smith’s economic theories or Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, it sits behind much of what we discuss. Can people consent to have themselves killed by a physician? Must everyone vaccinate their children, if they believe not doing so to be right? Or, put most generally: should a person be able to do whatever he... Read more
I’ve been pushing a line on 2016. Last week I wrote about the nasty blend of internet cynicism, real-world nihilism, and rampant desire for structures of meaning that has made 2016 so utterly terrible. There, however, I did not attend to something with enough precision: the internet. Its role should not be underestimated. What if 2016 is merely the logical conclusion of the cultural influences our increased digital connection has made possible? What if the internet is not just a... Read more
A[c] as I biheeld into the eest an heigh to the sonne, I seigh a tour on a toft trieliche ymaked, A deep dale bynethe, a dongeon therinne, With depe diches and derke and dredfulle of sighte. A fair feeld ful of folk fond I ther bitwene— Of alle manere of men, the meene and the riche, Werchynge and wandrynge as the world asketh. (Piers Plowman, B Text, Prologue, ll. 13-19) These words come from the beginning of one of... Read more
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