In the Evangelical Fundamentalist world in which I was raised our heroes were the missionaries. These courageous men and women gave up everything to go live in the jungle or some other God forsaken, rat infested place to preach the gospel. They went to the desert of North Africa, the jungles of Burma and countered the dangers of communist Eastern Europe. In high school I wanted to be a missionary. I said, “Lord, send me to the darkest and most... Read more
I do sometimes miss the Church of England and the Book of Common Prayer. For Thanksgiving Day here is Cranmer’s “General Thanksgiving” Have a great day! ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men; We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the... Read more
One of the simplest bits of evidence for the existence of God is the human instinct to give thanks. What is this strange impulse in the human heart to thank someone? We stop and pause on the mountaintop and view the expansive sky and we are swept with wonder and want to give thanks. We see the beauty of a smiling child or the laughter of an old man and we say “This is good” and want to give thanks.... Read more
The violence erupting in Ferguson, Missouri is not really about racial tension or socio economic inequality. It’s not about class struggle or police brutality or social injustice. It’s a symptom of a much deeper poison which I call the Dynamic of Blame. Rooted within every human heart is the stain of original sin. Now, when we think of “original sin” we usually think this means we have inherited a tendency toward selfish sinfulness simply by being human. OK. That’s not... Read more
My problem in researching the married priesthood is that whenever I find a good argument against, I immediately come up with an equally good argument in favor. Here’s an example: “The married priest will not be able to devote himself exclusively to his vocation as a priest. He will either be so busy as a priest that his wife and family will suffer or he will be so busy with his wife and family that his work as a priest... Read more
What are the pros and cons of being a married priest? I’ll be writing on various aspects of this question over the next few days. Firstly, we need to get some huge red herrings out of the way. People say, “A married man will understand married people’s problems better than a celibate man.” On the face of it, this seems obvious, but just because a man is married does not mean that he has a successful marriage. Do we really... Read more
An article in the Daily Telegraph ponders why the number of people attending parish churches in England continues to plummet. While attendance at cathedral worship is up, the number of worshippers in the local churches is in free fall. The Anglicans, of course, are not the only ones. All the churches in the Western developed countries are seeing numbers decline. The reasons are complex, but there are two big culprits. One is simply that people are busy doing everything... Read more
Last week I was asked by an editor at the New York Times to contribute a very short article as part of a forum on the issue of married priests in the Catholic Church. She asked me specifically to outline some practical reasons against having married priests. I did so, and thereby received a fair bit of criticism because I “had it all” but wanted to prohibit this gift to other married men. This is hardly an issue that could... Read more
I was asked to comment on the marriage-family crisis in our society. This interview was published elsewhere last week. I thought it would combine to make a good blog post. Enjoy. Is there a marriage crisis in the United States? How would you characterize it? “Crisis” is a good word to use because part of its definition is “a testing time.” Marriage is going through a time of testing. As a society we are re-examining what “marriage” means. As usual... Read more
Today is the fifty first anniversary of the death of C.S.Lewis. He died, of course, on the same afternoon that JFK was gunned down in Texas. Both men were nicknamed “Jack” and that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. The two Jacks symbolize two different ways through the world. Jack Lewis stands for the world of the intellect and imagination. Jack Kennedy stands for the world of practical power. Jack Lewis is the man of real faith combined with scholarship. Jack... Read more
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
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