1. Ramon Mayo shares this second-century observation from the “Epistle to Diognetus” (via Katlein @ BTSF):
For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. … But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. … Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.
2. Here’s Fr. Roy Bourgeois writing in September: “In July, Pope Francis told reporters, ‘On the ordination of women, the door is closed.’ He should know that no one — not even the Pope — can close a door that God wants to open.”
Bourgeois is right, and Francis’ “door is closed” comment is discouraging. But then even a closed door is still a door and not a wall. And even though Francis just again reiterated that “The reservation of the priesthood to males … is not a question open to discussion” that door remains a door, and closed doors intrinsically await opening. As a wise man recently said:
The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open. One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door. There are other doors that should not be closed either. Everyone can share in some way in the life of the Church; everyone can be part of the community, nor should the doors of the sacraments be closed for simply any reason.
3. More dismaying news from the states of dismay: Florida. North Carolina. Florida. North Carolina. Florida. North Carolina. Florida. North Carolina. Florida. North Carolina. Florida and North Carolina (now they’re just messing with me).
4. At Religious Left Law, Perry Dane discusses “The Parsonage Exemption and Constitutional Glare.” Dane’s view opposes what I argued here (see this post and this one), and it’s a thoughtful, intriguing counterpoint, even if it’s not one I find wholly persuasive.
5. Atrios asks, “Is there any reason ‘we’ want to stay in Afghanistan other than our general desire to be everywhere?” I don’t want “us” to stay in Afghanistan (or in Iraq), but I do see a historical analog that’s worth remembering. Once the U.S. pulled out of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, the Carolinas, Virginia and Florida, those states were quickly reclaimed by terrorists. The withdrawal of American military force in those states led to the triumph of the Klan, which established hegemony there for nearly a century afterward.
I’m pretty sure that historical analogy is not what those who want “us” to stay in Afghanistan are thinking of, and I don’t think Afghanistan and Alabama are really all that analogous in terms of American interests and direct American responsibility. Yet while “we” shouldn’t be staying in Afghanistan or in Iraq indefinitely, “we” also don’t want to become the Rutherford B. Hayes of Afghanistan either.
6. “This 1908 image of women smoking and drinking was intended to be a horrifying glimpse of a post-suffrage future. Now it just looks like an awesome bar.”
7. I try to make a habit here of highlighting these things as a kind of prophylactic against the lies habitually told by some of my fellow Christians who seem to think it’s their religious duty — or their vocation — to lie about black presidents. Here, then, is President Barack Obama’s 2013 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. And here’s his Thanksgiving-themed weekly address. That’s a public statement from the White House, so it’s not secret or obscure. And that’s Obama saying:
No matter our differences, we’re all part of one American family. We are each other’s keeper. We are one nation, under God. That core tenet of our American experience has guided us from the earliest days of our founding – and it will guide us to a future that’s even brighter than today.
Thank you, God bless you, and from my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.
Feel free to bookmark that page so you can refer back to it later when Mike Huckabee or The Liar Tony Perkins or Bryan Fischer or some other purportedly pious white dude says, yet again, that Obama never says such things. Their contempt for Obama is exceeded only by their contempt for the people they imagine are too stupid to realize they’re lying.
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