"One audience member asked the bishop how he viewed King David's relationship with two wives if marriage has not changed through history. Paprocki said that was a long time before the Catholic church. ... Another audience member asked about marriage between elderly people who would never have children. Paprocki recommended reading the biblical story of Abraham's wife, Sarah." Read more
At a church that isn’t condoning, teaching and practicing hate, if a kid says that word in public, then everything screeches to a halt. The music stops, the audience gasps and lapses into an awkward silence. The child’s mother rushes up front, grabs the kid by the hand and drags him out the back for a lecture about never, ever using such hateful words — Do you hear me? Read more
Catholic Answers: "The reason why the question 'Who gives this woman to this man?' never appears in a Catholic marriage liturgy is because the freedom of both parties to marry each other is so important that any suggestion that there is a lack of freedom by the bride to enter into the marriage -- that she has, instead, been 'given' into marriage by her father alone or by her parents together or by anyone else -- could call into question the validity of the marriage." Read more
Molly Worthen's New York Times article on white evangelical support for immigration -- "Love Thy Stranger as Thyself" -- summarizes most of the reasons why I see this as a hopeful, and perhaps very important, development. At the same time, Worthen's report ably illustrates many of the reasons that hopefulness is a bit qualified and tenuous. Read more
OK, so I've got less than a month left to clear out all the bookmarks from Google Reader. Here are a bunch of them, including: Why biblical inerrancy isn't biblical; the biblical reasons for covering your poo; for God so likes the world; personal responsibility for the powerless, but not the powerful; and more. Read more
Torture is ineffective and corrosive, and a certain path to military defeat. Read more
The pictures from Abu Ghraib — and the revelation that this goes far, far beyond the actions of a few "bad apples" or "morons" — has forced every American to react in one of two ways. We are either made to feel ashamed of our country, or else we are forced to rationalize away that shame by reassuring ourselves that we can condone torture and still be good people, and that anyway Saddam was worse. Read more
A long due apology from an ex-ex-gay; still waiting for a non-sectarian argument against equality; "you need to work on your marriage;" a forceful endorsement of amnesty for immigrants; wearing pants as an expression of "hostility;" doctors favor more access to health care -- even for women; "Nazism, Communism, Marxism and all the 'isms.'" Read more
Isaiah 30:1-3: "Oh, rebellious children, says the Lord ... who set out to go down to Egypt without asking for my counsel, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh, and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt; Therefore the protection of Pharaoh shall become your shame." Read more
David Dark: "If the powers that be are the boot which, to borrow Orwell's phrase, presses down upon the human face forever, apocalyptic is the speech of that human face. Apocalyptic denies, in spite of all the appearances to the contrary, the 'forever' part." Read more
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