I just ordered a new iPod Touch. I took the engraving option, and asked for this to be inscribed on the back: et cum spiritu tuo But Apple refused to honor my request. Here’s the message I received: “Inappropriate message text.” So, instead I ordered this to be engraved on the back: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner It does have the advantage of being a bit more ecumenical than my first choice. Read more
[audio:http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/returntorome/files/2012/03/030612_BP.mp3|titles=030612_BP] You can find the transcript here. Read more
Just read Denny Burk’s enlightening review of Mark and Grace Discoll’s Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life (Thomas Nelson, 2012). The Rev. Driscoll, a committed Calvinist, is a well-known megachurch pastor in the Seattle area. If Driscoll’s book is Evangelicalism’s answer to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, Evangelicalism has no idea what the question is. Here’s an excerpt from Burk’s review: “Although some Christian authors comment on the ethics of a husband sodomizing his wife,... Read more
Tomorrow, March 6, Zondervan (a subsidiary of Harper Collins Publishers) officially releases the book Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Anglicanism, edited by Robert L. Plummer (with a forward by my fellow Patheos blogger, Scot McKnight). I am one of the four main contributors, presenting in my chapter an account of my return to Catholicism. My chapter is followed by a response by Gregg R. Allison of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I then in turn reply to Allison in... Read more
That’s the title of my latest piece over at The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: American Conservative politicians are at a rhetorical disadvantage running for national office, not only because the national media are largely liberal. Our cultural vocabulary is infused with liberal assumptions. For this reason, many of us who largely agree with social and economic conservatism cringe when we listen to conservative politicians either struggling to convey a conservative answer without giving offense (as in the case... Read more
That’s the title of an article I just published in Sacred Tribes Journal 7.1 (Spring 2012). It is one of several articles in that issue dealing with the new book by my friend, Stephen H. Webb, Jesus Christ, Eternal God (Oxford University Press). Here’s how my article begins (notes omitted): In his learned and provocative tome, Jesus Christ, Eternal God, Stephen H. Webb plows the soil of hallowed ground. He broaches a topic that most classical theists have considered a settled question... Read more
One of the many reasons I love Baylor. Here’s an announcement that is on the Baylor website: Ash Wednesday worship service Feb. 20, 2012 On February 22nd, there will be an Ash Wednesday service in Miller Chapel at 12:20. For centuries, Christians have observed Ash Wednesday on the first day of the Lenten season, a time of deep introspection, intentional discipline, and preparation as Holy Week approaches. On Ash Wednesday, Christians receive the sign of the cross on their foreheads.... Read more
That’s the title of my most recent piece at The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: As almost everyone on earth now knows, Professor Obama has offered his “compromise” to the HHS regulations that require that all employers, including most religious employers, that provide health insurance to their employees must include coverage of contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients free of charge. It was a faux compromise. The insurance company, not the employer, must inform the employee that these options exist, while the... Read more
That’s the title of a piece authored by University of South Carolina philosopher, Christopher Tollefsen, who this year is serving as a Visiting Fellow in the James Program at Princeton University. The essay published this morning on National Review Online. Here’s how it begins: Catholic teaching on contraception is at the heart of the controversy over the Health and Human Services mandate. Catholic hospitals and universities are unwilling to purchase insurance plans that provide contraceptive coverage. To critics, this unwillingness... Read more
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