Tony Jones recently invited Scot Miller to blog about Robert A.K. Gagnon’s massive, circle-the-wagons text on The Bible and Homosexual Practice. The link above there is to Tony’s wrap-up, which links back to all six parts of Miller’s review, which is thorough and incisive. Miller gets to the heart of his disagreement with Gagnon — and to the fact that the heart of that disagreement is not at all what Gagnon seems to imagine it to be — a conflict... Read more

The reason I make fun of this stuff is because, as ridiculous as the lies and the posturing of these folks are, their fever-dreams and the false witness they bear have real-world consequences. And I don’t just mean the obvious political consequences — like for example 130,000 low-income women in Texas losing their access to health care (“I was sick, and you cut off funding for my health care”). This literal demonizing of others can also provoke actual violence when... Read more

I love Wegman’s. Wegman’s selection and customer service are fantastic. We shop there whenever we can afford it. We hardly ever shop there. Right-wing “artist” Jon McNaughton paints Barack Obama as William Lloyd Garrison. New Hampshire’s House of Representatives is still too big. “Handmaids of the Lord” vs. “Saints of the Roundtable” “People hate those whom they fear, and they fear those whom they have wronged.” “John Derbyshire is a racist. Declaring such does not require an act of mind-reading,... Read more

“Here’s a seal helping a stranded turtle get in the water.” “This was the course of things, the women knew. They would see it through to the end.” “Were you there when they crucified the poor?” “Sometimes it causes me to tremble tremble tremble.” “What stands out in the Holy Week services is humility in the face of unreasoning authority. What stands out, ultimately, and whether you believe in the Resurrection or not, or think the whole thing is a... Read more

(Originally posted in 2010.) Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;? therefore, we are saved by faith.? Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. – Reinhold Niebuhr This is my favorite day in Holy Week, this Saturday, this unrestful Sabbath, my favorite day in the whole of the liturgical calendar.... Read more

Just as it is encouraging to see the students at a Minnesota Catholic school demonstrating solidarity by sticking up for one another, so too it has been inspiring to see Catholic school administrators getting it right in Texas. Last month, via Charles Kuffner, I shared the story of Catholic schools defending Jewish and Muslim schools in the Texas Associations of Private and Parochial Schools. Kuffner revisits the story this week, saying, “I think we’ve found the problem at TAPPS.” He... Read more