Here’s the introduction: Imagine the scene. Ancient Jerusalem is at war. Its army is fighting far away. Behind the city walls, its old men, women and children nervously await word on what happened in battle. Their lives and future are at stake. Suddenly, a cry rings out from the sentries watching from the look-out points on top of the wall. “Your God reigns..” A rider approaching the wall has signaled victory. The whole city explodes in celebration. The word “evangelical”... Read more
Weigel writes: “I doubt that Pope Francis has heard of Ernie Banks, the Hall of Fame shortstop. But like “Mr. Cub,” whose love for baseball led him to exclaim “Let’s play two!” before Sunday doubleheaders in the 1950s, the pope from the end of the world seems to think that papal canonizations are better in tandem: hence the Sept. 30 announcement that Blessed John XXIII and Blessed John Paul II will be canonized together on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 27, 2014.”... Read more
From Mark Oppenheimer at The New York Times: Can a bad person be a good theologian? All of us fall short of our ideals, of course. But there is a common-sense expectation that religious professionals should try to behave as they counsel others to behave. They may not be perfect, but they should not be louts or jerks. By that standard, few have failed as egregiously as John Howard Yoder, America’s most influential pacifist theologian. In his teaching at Notre Dame... Read more
Just published this over at The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: On Monday evening of this week, on a plane flight from Chicago to Philadelphia, I sat, amidst the poor lighting and the turbulence, transfixed, pouring over the pages of the Holy Father’s recently published interview, about which several on this page, and thousands elsewhere, have opined. So, I was not reading it with fresh eyes, but rather through the prism of not only the New York Times, but also by... Read more
That’s the title of my most recent column over at The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: When I was a kid in the 1970s, most liberal-minded adults, in order to make sure you knew that they harbored no racial prejudices, often went out of their way to say what they thought were kind things about minorities – which actually revealed just the opposite. So, for example, after watching a television interview of the great professional basketball star Julius Erving... Read more
Over at First Things, my friend, Steve Webb, offers an apologetic for Bob Dylan’s voice. Before you go there, you may want to listen to Zimmy, from a concert in Akron in April: Read more
During my time in Rome in June, I was interviewed by the Catholic News Service. Here’s the video: Read more
Just came across this blog by former member of the Byrds, Roger McGuinn. It includes many posts of traditional folk songs sung by McGuinn Read more
That’s the title of my most recent article published in the The Evangelical Quarterly 85.3 (July 2013): 211-227. Here’s the abstract: Over the past several decades, some Evangelical philosophers and theologians have embraced the metaphysics, epistemology, and natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), despite that fact that historically some of the leading lights in Evangelicalism have rejected Aquinas’s views because they believed these views are inconsistent with classical Reformation teaching. Some of these Evangelical Thomists have argued that on the... Read more
Read it here at First Things. She writes: What did Francis say? Well, at this writing, the official Vatican transcript is not available, but according to reports, the Pope endorsed the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “A gay person who is seeking God, who is of good will—well, who am I to judge him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says one must not marginalize these persons, they must be integrated into society. The problem isn’t... Read more
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