My sister, Elizabeth Beckwith, on the Late, Late Show ten years ago (June 2000): Read more
My sister, Elizabeth Beckwith, on the Late, Late Show ten years ago (June 2000): Read more
On October 15 3-4 pm PDT I will be the guest on Catholic Answers Live to discuss my recently published article in the September/October 2010 issue of The Rock, “Government Forms (and Deforms) the Soul.” Portions of the article are adapted from my latest book, Politics for Christians: Statecraft as Soulcraft (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010) Read more
On Monday, October 18, I will be in Oxford, Mississippi speaking at the law school at the University of Mississippi on the topic, “Disenfranchising Believers: Why the Religious Motive Test Violates Religious Free Exercise.” Read more
Suppose someone, like me, a life-long Christian, after considering the arguments for and against Catholicism, decides that the case for Catholicism makes more sense to me than does the case for Protestantism, even though I believe that one can become and/or remain a Protestant without being unreasonable in doing so. I raise this query because there are some–on both sides of the Catholic-Protestant divide–who think that if you don’t see the obvious truth of either position (depending on which side... Read more
I am sometimes asked what book or books I would recommend as an introduction to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas for the intelligent non-specialist. Here is my advice. You should first read Ralph McInerny’s entry on St. Thomas in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Then you can move on to these three books, which are some of my favorites: Ralph McInerny, A First Glance at Thomas Aquinas: A Guide for Peeping Thomists (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame... Read more
New readers to Return to Rome may not know I have appeared twice on the EWTN program, The Journey Home, hosted by Marcus Grodi. On both programs I discuss my return to the Catholic Church after 30 years as an Evangelical Protestant. Just click either one to watch the video: The Journey Home – 24 September 2007 The Journey Home – 14 September 2009 Read more
I posted this at my old Return to Rome blog earlier this year. But it’s worth a repost. Over at Chris-tocentric (clever name), Chris Castaldo shares this humorous story: Sister Mary Ann, who worked for a home health agency, was out making her rounds visiting homebound patients when she ran out of gas. As luck would have it, a Texaco Gasoline station was just a block away. She walked to the station to borrow a gas can and buy some... Read more
Timothy McGrew, a philosophy professor at Western Michigan University, has just published a very nice entry on “Miracles” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. You can read it here. Read more
I’m totally taking this idea from my fellow patheos blogger, Scot McKnight, who on Jesus Creed asked this question about the Beatles, “What is their best song?” (Bob Dylan with Roger McGuinn, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, George Harrison, and Neil Young singing “My Back Pages”– click for lyrics) Read more
The Baylor press release reads: From September 25 until November 28, 2010, Baylor University’s Mayborn Museum will have the privilege of housing two of the greatest masterpieces of modern religious art: Georges Rouault’s Miserere and Marc Chagall’s Bible series. The opportunity to exhibit these two remarkable collections is made possible by the generosity of the Mark Foster Foundation, which has established Fine Arts in the Academy to “advance the serious study of art, history, and Western civilization on America’s college campuses by putting students face-to-face... Read more