New word: Metaphornication

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

Here’s the context. On Thursday evening I was in Denver. Over dinner I was discussing with friends Pat Robertson’s claim that one can divorce a spouse with Alzheimer and begin dating others without violating the “in sickness and in health” requirement, because, according to Robertson, the spouse suffering from Alzheimer is “a kind of death.” As the conversation continued, one of the other dinner guests pointed out that Martin Luther had said that divorce for reason of adultery is not... Read more

The Christian University

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

That’s the title of my latest entry over at The Catholic Thing. It is adapted from my September 23, 2011 talk at the installation of Myron Steeves as Dean of Trinity Law School. Here’s how it begins: As is evident by where and how we mark this event – in a church, accompanied by prayer and song – Trinity Law School, and the university of which it is a part, is Christian. “Christian” may seem a mere adjective that modifies “university”... Read more

Speaking to the Orange County Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society on September 22

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

For those who are in the Southern California area, on September 22 I will be speaking to the Orange County Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. My talk is entitled, “How the Federal Courts’ Religious Motive Test Violates Religious Liberty.” Co-Sponsored with the Orange County Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society, it will be held at 12 noon (11:30 am registration) at the Knobbe Conference Center, 2nd Floor at 2040 Main St., Irvine, 92614. You can read more... Read more

Revelation, Sacred Tradition, and the Magisterium

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

That’s the title of my latest column over at The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: This past Tuesday, September 13, I taught my first RCIA class, offered at St. Peter’s Catholic Student Center at Baylor University. Although I have been teaching philosophy to college students for twenty-five years, I was a bit nervous. Thankfully, I have a minor role in the class, leading only one session this semester with perhaps another one or two in the Spring. Our RCIA team consists... Read more

An historian’s account of Baylor’s 1994 invitation to join the Big XII

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

The recent tempest over Texas A & M’s invitation to join the Southeast Conference, and Baylor University’s response to it, has resulted in some heated exchanges online. In following these verbal disputes, I have had the misfortune of reading some of the press op-ed accounts of how and why Baylor was invited to join the Big XII in the mid-1990s after the dissolution of the Southwest Conference. Most of these narratives range from the misleading to the outright false. Fortunately, nearly... Read more

Secular Gnosticism and “The New York Times”

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

That’s the title of my latest entry over at The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: Just this past week, Bill Keller of the New York Times opined about the religious beliefs of several Republican presidential candidates, suggesting clusters of questions that he would like to ask each of them. Keller’s column has been justly criticized and ridiculed by many writers, including the folks at Get Religion. Not only because of the factual errors that pepper Keller’s epistle, but the crude and... Read more

Another Christian “Dominionist”?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

With all this talk of certain Republican Christians and their alleged connection to Dominionism–a view inaccurately ascribed to several Christian writers in articles published in the New York Times and the New Yorker—there’s one Christian that our East-of-the-Hudson betters seemed to miss. Here are his shocking comments, where he explains how America’s laws should reflect God’s eternal law: Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the... Read more

The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

That is the title of a new book by Notre Dame sociologist, Christian Smith. I received my copy of it yesterday, and I cannot put it down. (Readers of Return to Rome may recall that in June I blogged about Professor Smith’s other recent book, How to Go From Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five Difficult Steps (Cascade Books 2011). My endorsement of the book is on its back cover). Unsurprisingly, The Bible Made Impossible is... Read more

Mormonism and Natural Law

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

That’s the title of my latest entry over at The Catholic Thing. Here’s how it begins: With the increasing likelihood that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee for President, it is important for Catholics and other Christians to reflect on some concerns raised by Damon Linker in a 2007 New Republic article. Linker argues that Mormon theology does not have important resources that traditional Christians have at their disposal, such as natural-law theory. Although LDS writings say little specifically about... Read more

Libertarians for Life: A Nice Resource

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Francis J. Beckwith

You can find their website here. Read more

Which Gospel begins "In the beginning was the Word"?