Every now and then I’ll hear from someone who has bought into the “Jesus Myth” hypothesis. You can find this in books like Jesus Potter, Harry Christ, in the “historical” studies of Acharya S., or from your neighborhood atheist who heard that there are some similarities between the stories of Jesus and Mithras, and who finds it expedient to believe that the Jesus narrative was fabricated like a patchwork quilt from various other stories that might have floated through Palestine... Read more
These days if you let it slip that you’d like to restore the Judeo-Christian ethical underpinnings of American society, you’re likely to be labeled an extremist. You must want to forcibly convert the masses, outlaw other religions, imprison the atheists, ban secularists from the political sphere and achieve theocratic “dominion” of Christians over the apparatus of the state. Or something. Because, you know, your backwardness makes you susceptible to cultish thinking, and your hatred of “the other” makes you dangerous.... Read more
In honor of a special day, here is one of the best things I’ve written since I began writing a Patheos at little over two years ago: Why We Have Children… I hate the memory of it. I hate it. I hate how stiff my daughter’s body felt in my arms that night. I hate how vacant and soulless her face had become, unmoving save for the veined whites of her eyes as the irises fluttered up under the skull. It... Read more
My recent Open Letter to a College Freshman generated many positive responses. One less-positive response came at Mark D. Roberts’ excellent blog, where a commenter explained that he had not found, some decades ago at UCLA, the kind of antagonism toward his faith that I described. We should not, he said, “send freshmen off to college assuming that they are entering a spiritual war zone where their beliefs will constantly be under attack.” Another commenter (a professor) said the letter... Read more
Here are a few paragraphs from what I wrote for the “Religion Notebook” in the next issue of World Magazine: The new movie Courageous played before a packed house in its red-carpet premiere in Atlanta on August 26th. It tells the story of a group of male friends who remember the importance of fatherhood and commit themselves, in the midst of personal tragedies and professional struggles, to be the husbands and fathers God calls them to be. It’s the fourth... Read more
Dear Freshman, At last your time has come. Leaving behind the old world and the deep ruts you carved in the corner of that world that belonged to you, you’re off to explore undiscovered countries, to join a new and ever-replenishing society of fascinating people and learned scholars and impassioned artists and driven achievers, off to a place where the world is new and so are you. Whether or not your college years will be “the best years of your life,”... Read more
Sloan Briles is a real winner: A California man was arrested for investigation of throwing his crying 7-year-old son into the water from a sightseeing cruise boat during an argument that shocked other passengers, authorities said Monday. …”The father hit him several times and then threatened to throw him overboard if he didn’t stop crying,” Amormino said. “The crowd on the boat became very angry at the father for hitting the kid and extremely angry when he threw him overboard.”... Read more
Douglas MacKinnon writes at Investor’s Business Daily: Beyond the usual suspects in the far-left media, many in the GOP establishment such as Karl Rove, are doing all they can to derail the Perry campaign. Again, why? Erick Erickson, in an excellent horse race summation in Red State, nails the answer: “So you have these guys … trying to settle every score they can with Perry and his consultant, Dave Carney. … Because so much of the consultant class will be... Read more
In the News 1. Walter Russell Mead, ever since he left the Henry Kissinger Chair on the Council of Foreign Relations, has been one of the best columnists and commentators in the country. If you’re not reading him regularly, you should. In his latest piece, he speaks of a bit of environmentalist madness that is preventing the United States from getting oil and jobs: Here’s what the greens ignore: the oil is coming out of the ground whether or not the... Read more
According to numbers published yesterday, the federal debt has increased by over $4.2 billion for every single day that Barack Obama has been in office, or $3 million per minute. In Obama’s 945 days in office, the federal debt has grown over $4 trillion. As a criticism of President Obama, it’s a bit of a statistical cheap shot. When he came into power, a substantial deficit was budgeted for his first year in office, and a majority of the American people... Read more
Philosophical Fragments
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