Some time ago, we at Patheos held a conversation on “What does God look like?” Answers were supposed to be brief. Since I’ve been more-than-a-little-swamped lately — I have about 5 posts three-quarters of the way finished — I thought I’d go ahead and share my response: * * * I am a Christian because I believe the Creator God spoke to the world in the Word. Although God reveals Himself in a thousand ways, God gave Himself to the... Read more
It’s a familiar refrain that our political system has grown dysfunctional, even broken. Congress, for instance, has not passed a federal budget since April 2009. The budget the Obama administration presented in February was defeat in May without a single vote from either party. The debt-ceiling crisis is seen by many as a perfect — and utterly depressing — illustration of our political dysfunction. Consumer confidence is tumbling, and the S & P downgrade was explained (or at least rationalized)... Read more
Key quotations from both sides of the aisle: Theodore Dalrymple (no relation): The ferocious criminality exhibited by an uncomfortably large section of the English population during the current riots has not surprised me in the least. I have been writing about it, in its slightly less acute manifestations, for the past 20 years. To have spotted it required no great perspicacity on my part; rather, it took a peculiar cowardly blindness, one regularly displayed by the British intelligentsia and political class, not... Read more
John Stott, quoted by Kyle Roberts: Emotionally, I find the concept [of eternal conscious torment] intolerable and do not understand how people can live with it without either cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it . . . my question must be—and is—not what does my heart tell me, but what does God’s word say?... Read more
Quotations are offered not because I agree or disagree with them, but as points of departure for continued reflection. Ed Morrisey (a couple days ago): There is a lot of anger at the moment in the US over the embarrassment of the downgrade, as well as shock. I’m most amused by the shock, to tell the truth. S&P didn’t say anything yesterday that was not common knowledge and common sense. If you had to rate a potential investment that had... Read more
Let’s review for a moment. The American stock market is cratering. It’s lost roughly ten percent of its value in the last two trading days. In fact, by some measures, yesterday was the worst day ever for stock markets worldwide. Just when the European sovereign debt crisis seems to be easing away, the contagion flourishes somewhere else; worse, it’s moving up the food-chain to countries too large for the European Central Bank to simply bail out. China shows no inclination... Read more
Ralph Richard Banks: I came away [from my research] convinced of two facts: Black women confront the worst relationship market of any group because of economic and cultural forces that are not of their own making; and they have needlessly worsened their situation by limiting themselves to black men. I also arrived at a startling conclusion: Black women can best promote black marriage by opening themselves to relationships with men of other races. Dana Milbank: The economy crawls, the credit... Read more
Sociologist Bradley Wright in an interview from Patton Dodd at Patheos: There is this funny paradox: people tend to think that their own lives are getting better over time, but they think [society] is getting worse. Are your finances getting better over time? Yes. Is the economy getting better over time? No. Isyour family getting better over time? Yes. Are American family relationships getting better? No. One psychologist referred to it as, “The grass is browner on the other side.” Bradley Wright... Read more
I’m going to begin a series that I’ll try to post every day. It will be called Quotes of the Day. It will take quotations from both sides of the aisle, and link to some of the better commentary on the day. The viewpoints represented below are not necessarily (and in some cases obviously not) my own. Enjoy: Senator Tom Coburn: “For decades, political careerism has trumped statesmanship in Washington,” Coburn said in a statement yesterday. “Both parties have done... Read more
I’m tempted to speak as Aragorn did to Frodo at the Prancing Pony in Bree: “Are you frightened? Not nearly frightened enough.” And, humanly speaking, I think that Aragorn would have it precisely right. Some of us have been trying to sound the alarm for a long time now. Government spending has expanded at a gobsmacking rate, and once-sustainable levels of deficit spending have exploded far beyond sustainable levels. And while the machinery of government has grown massive and over-fed,... Read more
Philosophical Fragments
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