Where, one wonders, in these sad and tawdry days, can we find students of the holy ilk of Chaucer's pilgrim who place faith and reason ahead of priggish pomp and political pontificating? Not, it seems, at the Oxford Union... I am in receipt of an invitation to address the Oxford Union from its President, Daniel [...]
A good reason for reading church history is that it gives one hope, helping one navigate the stormy waters of yesterday’s news with a calm hand on the tiller. And not only does it put present turmoil into perspective, but it helps one realize that things have often been bad, but despite all the death [...]
Who can save us amid our current intellectual messiness? I would offer Aquinas. His philosophy doesn’t get as much attention as other philosophers, but it was he who synthesized the ancient Greek into a unified Western philosophical system that will stand the test of time. The 2016 data breach of the personal Gmail account of [...]
When we think of “the faith and the South” we tend to think of Protestantism in general, and perhaps the Southern Baptists in particular, especially in terms of the so-called Bible Belt. There is, however, much more to the South than the Protestant evangelical or fundamentalist culture that has made its presence felt, socially and [...]
When Donald Trump caught so many political commentators off guard, we looked for an explanation amid the closing factories, but we should have been looking for the closing churches… If you’ve ever been to a Donald Trump rally, you’ll notice it doesn’t match the impression left by the media coverage of the president’s base. [...]
Jim Wallis is an intelligent and sincere person, someone worth listening to on serious subjects. But he appears to be politically illiterate. There is simply no engagement with serious conservative political writers—no hint that he knows such people even exist. This is typical of many intelligent and well-informed people on the Left... One of my [...]
The sirens tempted unwary sailors towards the rocks with their enchanting song and alluring loveliness. They often stand for the lusts of the flesh, but their destructive allure perhaps more powerfully stands for the seductive enchantment of primitivism, fundamentalism, and restorationism. […]
Although somewhat overshadowed by the allegory of the Cave, the myth of the ring of Gyges, and other powerful images found in Plato’s Republic, the account of the ship of fools is still memorable and compelling. While Socrates—the Athenian philosopher and mentor of Plato—is discussing with his young friends the nature of justice and the ideal [...]
Vast topics are notoriously easy to avoid, and those who undertake to wrestle with them in public owe their audience some concrete reason for their choice. Let me begin with mine. First, this summer I had occasion to study Supreme Court decisions bearing on freedom of religion and the public schools. The graduate students with [...]
Did God gamble everything in the Garden of Gethsemane, the second Adam facing a real, existential, and eternal choice of going through with the Father’s will or backing away from it? God’s Gamble: The Gravitational Power of Crucified Love, by Gil Bailie (384 pages, Angelico Press, 2016) Few thinkers have stormed the post modern world [...]
It is time to whisper the truth that dare not speak its name. In short, it’s time to face the real facts about Oscar Wilde and his real views on homosexuality… It was with a queer sense of déjà vu that I heard the news that a “temple” in homage to Oscar Wilde has been [...]
We must come to grips with the actual expansiveness of the West and consider candidly its possible superiority—superiority, that is, in the scope it gives to individual human nature by the universality of its conceptions. I shall begin with two sets of facts and dates. On or about August 8 of 1519 Hernán Cortés, a [...]
Whereas heroic missionary effort and martyrdom seemed the hallmark of the first Jesuits, the second generation moved in a different direction. In the Roman calendar, October is a harvest for militant saints. Kicking off with Saint Therese of Lisieux who proclaimed, “Sanctity! It must be won at the point of a sword!”, the calendar marches [...]
Present in all love is the love that God has for each of His creatures. In loving our neighbor, even the worst sinner, we love what God loves in him. But God’s love for us includes a final judgment about our lives... “Hell is the place God created for the angels who rebelled against him. [...]