Safe Haven

 I’m sorry; admittedly, I’m being provocative. Someone even had the gall to suggest that I should respect him because he went to seminary. Well, from the seeds planted and what they’ve grown into, I do not. As one friend put it, “There will be a lot of theologians in Hell.” This will not be a love letter to his contemptible opponent, Ken Paxton. Not even close. The loss was probably inevitable, and perhaps even deserved. There are vanishingly few people willing to stand up and say, “You know what? Unfettered access to abortion is not a moderate position. Gender ideology is not part of a moderate position or program.” What it means to be a social conservative is at least this: You are willing to challenge harmful garbage, as a matter of public policy and human rights. And you have the credibility—the ethos—to make the arguments. If the Texas GOP wants me to run, I’ll break out of this mostly exile from politics to challenge him. I’ll move. Just say the word. Because I don’t care if ...

 I showed a new friend a picture of my sister, Alyse. All the grief came back. Not in a big display, at least not in my terms, but it was real. She’s here. She’s not here. Christian hope is real. It also increases pain. Hope is the impetus for Heaven. It’s that virtue that pulls us out of the muck and the mire to go toward God. My Redeemer lives, and so does Alyse, but I am still here. You have to live right there. If you ignore death or Heaven, you have pretty close to nothing. Let the tears come, if they need to, because it’s not about the tears. We would both agree that Heaven is better than this place. We have both had our fill of this place and its suffering. Anybody could say, “How I long for just one more conversation!” But aren’t we longing for the little taste of Heaven that is every eternal soul? Hasn’t God left his mark and his voice here upon us? The God of the living, not of the dead.

 Let’s get right to the point: I think Democrats are going to lose most of these “good chances” in red areas. Talarico will lose; Susan Collins will win in ME. I’m calling it 51-49, GOP. You need to be safely outside the margin of error as a Democrat, because loyal GOP voters 1. Don’t answer phone calls from pollsters; and 2. Will lie to a pollster’s face. I have no idea why Democrats were ever so confident about the Senate. I don’t know what Nate Silver is thinking, either. Some of these pollsters must literally do the polls to cheer up Democratic partisans; I have no other reasonable explanation for what I see.  We need to talk about margin of error: if it’s above 4, it’s a complete garbage poll. This isn’t North Korea; our elections are tight, and they should be. Good rule of thumb: Add 3 points to every Republican in a poll. If you’re connected to the Democrat in some way and you still feel good about the outcome, fair enough. By way of self-defense, I will tell you that I...

 “O Captain, my Captain!” It seems appropriate here; Star Trek is so formative for me. I can remember drawing pictures of the Enterprise-D when I was small. Not enough people are nerds; one dumb teacher drew a smiley face on it. That’s the Enterprise, you Philistine! He did other things, of course. And thankfully, he did Shakespeare; I thank him and so many others for preserving it. He was great in David Lynch’s Dune, in a film nobody smart seems to like. He was probably miscast a bit; he’s too good-looking to play Gurney Halleck. Nevertheless, he’s the only Gurney who matters, in that adaptation of another science fiction classic. Admittedly, I don’t know how to pray for an avowed atheist. I’ll just have to hope that some useful conscripted Anglicanism got him baptized. Speaking of conscripted Anglicanism, he guest starred in the adaptations of John le Carre’s most famous works, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People, in 1979 and 1982, respectively. What’s memorable abou...

 I don't care what he spends his money on. And quite honestly, I'd probably oppose all these Democrats if I had an obscene amount of money. It's the same stuff, different day for the Democrats: abortion on demand, alternative sexuality, and sometimes communism. Literally. They don't learn, and they don't listen. Not that I'm voting Republican. I can't vote at all, because I moved a couple times, and failed to fix my registration. Besides all that, I know very few people excited to vote GOP, and if I did, I wouldn't trust them. These people are crazy, too. Back to Musk, he's just the Howard Hughes of his day. He's probably nuts, but "dangerous" seems like a stretch. Seems like the Left turned on him because he doesn't get emotional, and therefore, they couldn't lead him where they want him to go. He's fonder of Trump than I am, to say the least, but I have resigned myself to the fact that most people appreciate Trump more tha...

 In the midst of a comment somewhere, I said, "If I am honest, I don't like liberals." First off, this isn't strictly true; I've voted for enough of them that my commitment to opposing liberals in America is in serious question. On the other hand, I started as a conservative and a Republican, and I'm still very much that guy, modified by new information. I mean to say, if I went into a room full of bog-standard Republicans, I'm more comfortable in that room than in an opposite room. Someone has every right to question my judgment in that, but I'm just telling you. It was really painful to stop identifying as such, and it still is. I like those people. I understand what matters to them. When you get some young Republicans in a room, and they're college-bound, I know what books they are reading. I don't check in on the Wall Street Journal editorial page much--no time or money--but those associations from my young adulthood are all fond and positi...

 So this is what I'm trying to do now. It allows me to work around some health and physical challenges, as well as actually use the considerable gifts--and education--I've been given. I suppose that it could be fraught; we live with the separation(s) in Christendom each day, even if we don't realize it. The East-West divide is tragic, but less painful, I think. I have been brought toward my brethren in the Reformation by friendship and service. In any case, my most pressing goal is biblical knowledge spread far and wide. Before I left my Presbyterian seminary, one of my favorite professors told me that there were too few great Catholic biblical scholars and teachers working today, in his opinion. For my part, I consider myself unworthy to untie his sandals. But by God's grace, I hope to make a difference. (I attended seminary with the founder of Faithtree, as you might surmise.) Please consider prayerfully giving, and please share the link with anyone who might benefit...

 There was an academic who was recently worried that young liberals—whatever that means—aren’t proud of their country. It worried him. He’s an immigrant from an Islamic country. To be fair, he easily could be second-generation. I’m trying to say he’s not named Steve. It was a clip on C-SPAN. From the Kennedy School of Government. Find it for me. Anyway, Democrats often get dinged on this patriotism thing, and I appreciate the effort to put flags everywhere at the convention and stuff. As much as anyone, I will say that the critic often loves her country as much or more than the person who says “If you don’t like it, leave” and wants no changes at all. On the other hand, if I could put all the far-Left academics and Christian theocrats (sometimes called nationalists) on the moon, where they’d be forced to cooperate or die, let’s just say that would be a great season of Survivor. Believe it or not, I’m more on the, “This could be better” side, though I am really patriotic. I can’t he...

 On the one hand, artist types need to realize that conservative people don’t want their opinions on political matters. It’s probably not fair, but conservatives and Republicans generally think they know more about what matters than liberals do. Some liberals and progressives can’t even fathom this, since (apparently) they think anyone not them is just as stupid. You may have noticed: people don’t cower in shame; they dig in deeper, in the face of contempt and mockery. Back to Mandy Patinkin: I love him. I don’t know him, obviously. That being said, I love him. And people with different temperaments than me hate self-important actors who pretend for a living and cry a lot. Not me. Every time I hear him talk, I think, “There’s my friend.” He’s way more political than Dolly Parton ever was, but don’t kid yourself: that dude is beloved. And he bloody well deserves it. I couldn’t help myself; I stuck up for Mandy on the Twitter. I know a priest who’s probably more politically conservat...

 Sophie Cunningham simply said early what the league said like yesterday: Biological men shouldn’t play women’s sports. She said it way nicer than I would. As a reward, she gets called “MAGA Barbie” and all this stuff. Undeserved, completely. She’s way left of me. She’s just sensible. Progressives can’t abide that. In other news, Black liberals and progressives get a pass on a lot of race-baiting that they shouldn’t. Real bigotry should be challenged. If there are still systemic issues that can be demonstrated, let’s fix them. But notice how people screamed bloody murder when the Supreme Court wouldn’t let a political party use race as a means to permanently dominate politics. Notice how equality under the law gets marked racist. I’m an ally of fairness; I’m an ally of justice. I’m not an ally of anyone permanently expressing obsequious obedience to the idea that white people are the problem. That is, permanently. I can go a long way down the road of what we might have called the c...

 They make better Catholics than most Catholics. On the other hand, I don’t spend a great deal of time judging fellow parishioners. When I say that, I think of people who are indistinguishable from the worst heathen you could find. Stalin was a baptized Catholic. The mystery of the difference between mistakes and damnable willful choices is nearly as inscrutable as Providence itself. We can know what sin is, we can know by catechism and conscience that we need forgiveness, but why any of us do anything—especially knowing it’s wrong—is beyond my understanding. Aquinas tells us that we sin because we believe that the sin is an apparent good. And I will buy that. It must appear to be good in the affections; I do not become ignorant of intellectual matters long settled. To be frank, I must not be able to see the damage of the bad thing I have chosen. Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Sometimes, I question in some sense this prayer. “They sh...

 Misandry couldn’t get Dave Chappelle, (for now) because he’s Black. That’s still a good scoring play in the Grievance Olympics. If Dave were a woman, he’s golden. At least until trans activists either eliminate all biological women, or convince us to do it ourselves. It’s the same joke, you know. Google “Dave Chappelle prostitute uniform.” It wasn’t within the past 6 weeks, though, so that whole part of Dave goes down the memory hole. Shane Gillis is pretty liberal, too. His problem is, of course, is that he looks like a Trumper. Matthew Broussard relies on these stereotypes, though he’s liberal and Jewish. As he puts it, “My voice sounds like why Mitt Romney lost.” Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated Broussard's quote. I regret the error.

 You hear and see the phrase a lot. First, a breakdown: “Toxic” means “harmful to living beings or systems.” Well, that’s probably not precise enough. A fired bullet is harmful to living beings, but only in odd cases owing to their manufacture could they be defined as toxic. There’s probably something about “disruption of biological processes, either acutely, or more slowly, that cause harm or death.” Anyway. We should probably define “masculinity” before we decide what toxic masculinity would be. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone concerned about this actually do that. The gender-neutral elephant in the room is that there has to be a link between biological sex and gender—the social expectations that coincide with one’s biological sex—that gender ideology denies. I think nearly everyone would grant that gender is often enforced too rigidly. And everyone does it. One group bothers the sensitive bookish boy they say cries too easily; another decides the girl we used to call a “tomboy” o...