The thing that surprised me the most about the first presidential debate was that everyone seemed to think that Governor Romney “won.” I was somewhat confused by this at first until I realized that the methods of judging the relative performance of the two men were entirely superficial. FWIW, I thought the governor was more aggressive than the President, but no less or more clear in his presentation of his position. Maybe the reason everyone is so sure that Governor... Read more
What can we do? That is the question faith-filled women ask me whenever we discuss the HHS Mandate. What can we, out here in the far-flung reaches of this great country, do to stop this attack against our faith? Vote. I tell them. Pray. I say. Talk to your friends. Write your congresspeople. Send a letter to the editor. All good things, to be sure. All very American things. But what can we, as women do about this? After all, it’s our... Read more
Tyndale House, one of the largest Christian book publishers in the world, filed suit yesterday against the HHS Mandate. Tyndale House specializes in religious books, particularly Bibles. Despite this, they fell outside the narrowly-drawn exemptions to the HHS Mandate requiring employers to pay for, among other things, abortifacients. According to an October 2 LifeNews.com article, “The (HHS) mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterlization and contraception under threat of... Read more
It’s become fashionable to demand that God perform a miracle, “prove” Himself to you, as a condition of your belief. I have to be honest, I find this offensive. I’m not talking about Bob Seidensticker and his request. I am referring to those “show me or else” lugs who seem to regard being offensive to Christians as their reason for living. I can not lose the idea that no matter how ignorant these people undoubtedly are, they are still arrogant... Read more
Bob Seidensticker, an occasional atheist commenter here at Public Catholic, has called for miracle stories in a post on his blog, Cross Examined. I’ll be posting a few miracle stories in the next week. All from real life as I know it. This one involves my youngest son. My son went to mother’s day out at a Methodist church near our house when he was a toddler. It was just a few hours, a couple of days a week, but... Read more
Prayer has been on our minds here at Patheos. One of our atheist colleagues has committed himself to the 40 Day Prayer Experiment. This caused quite a bit of comment and even derision among the faithful, including, at first, me. I saw it as mocking God. When my atheist blogger friend added a request that someone tell him about any miracles they’d seen, I was even more put out. “Putting God to the test.” I huffed. What changed my attitude... Read more
I never though I would put Eminem on this blog. He and I part company in so many places. But this cleaned-up version of Lose Yourself is too apt. Sometimes the most spot-on “analysis” comes from the most awkward places. Read more
Americans United for Separation of Church and State evidently sent copies of this letter to 60,000 pastors recently. It’s important to remember that Americans United is not an official agency of any governmental entity. This letter has no force of law and is just their opinion. Our local AU affiliate here in Oklahoma has sent similar letters to pastors in my House district in the past. The pastors I talked to about it tell me they threw it in the... Read more
Well, I did it. I drug the scale from under the counter, stood on the thing and looked down. It was bad. I weigh more than I ever have. No wonder I feel so lousy. After reading all the helpful (And I do mean helpful. Thank you!) comments on my first post about this, Picking My Prison: Which Diet Program for Me? I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a health habits problem as much as it is an over-eating... Read more
Bob Seidensticker, one of our friendly atheists here at Patheos, writes at Cross Examined. Bob has been posting about his participation in a 40 Day Prayer Experiment. I often tell people who doubt God’s existence to do something very similar. What I tell them is to pray honestly for five minutes each day for 30 days. I don’t think it will take 30 days. I choose that number because it sounds good — serious — to them. The key is... Read more
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