Safe Haven

 In my last post, I took a shot at Ricky Gervais. Well, not really. More like a shot at atheist-flavored ignorance, which even as an entertainer, he’s pretty visible for. We need to actually speak plainly about what we have recorded in what Christians call the New Testament, or New Covenant. Church people, step out of the shoes of loving Jesus and His Church for one moment. How does the New Testament read or sound on the face of it? Let’s just focus on the four Gospels. That’s where all the stuff allegedly said by Jesus is recorded. Jesus as a liar doesn’t have much evidence behind it; he didn’t lounge in Malta after all the stuff, getting rich after selling purported baptismal water. He got called a blasphemer by his own people, and executed as a disturber of the peace by the Roman Empire. Let’s set aside Jesus’ alleged resurrection and every miracle he did for a moment as well. Jesus being crazy seems to have some evidence behind it. No sensible philosopher I have ever heard woul...

 Atheism has never unjustly killed anyone, apparently. Oh, wait. What’s the body count for Marxism-Leninism? 50 million? Can’t wait to hear how those avowed atheists are actually Christians or something. Meanwhile, even if I arrogated to myself the duty to apologize for every awful thing any theist has ever done, those numbers aren’t even close. If you want to say that you don’t want to attend religious services, or even that most of the believers you’ve met are maladjusted weirdos, just say that. But you can’t just make up stuff that’s easily disproven. Meanwhile, have you ever met an atheist-agnostic who said, “Those Christians don’t really love like Jesus”? If Jesus has no divine authority, there’s no profit in being like Jesus. If you don’t believe Jesus is God, or that a god exists, how do you know anything about Jesus? What we know about Jesus purports to be divinely revealed. See where this is going? I don’t know anyone with more chutzpah than the citizens of historically Ch...

 Recent data gathered together by my internet friend James Heaney suggests that 15 percent of the people you might run into (or more) these days may not actually have permission to be in the United States right now. 15 percent is a lot. When I saw the numbers, I was shocked. Me personally? I don’t care. Every immigrant I’ve ever met seems awesome. But let’s say you weren’t sure at even a minimum level that a group of people were committed to a basic posture of nonviolence, or to treat women equally and justly? What if people bring a culture here that’s nothing like ours? Forget skin color or religion, per se. If people don’t commit to basic American values and attitudes, it wouldn’t take much to cause some serious friction that wouldn’t just go away. You can’t just wish all that away with some nice words about equality. That’s about as gracious as I can be toward President Trump and his purpose for being a politician. The last time we had so many outsiders as a proportion of all of...

 I’m writing this now because today, my schoolmate Marci would have been 46. I remember being totally surprised, because I didn’t know she was struggling, and she is/was one of those people who lived so “loud” that you rebuke yourself for wasting time complaining. Have you ever met someone so joyful that you think they’re nuts? Later, you realize the problem is you. I didn’t see Marci much after we left grade school, but I will tell you a story from that time. We’re sitting in class at Ross Elementary in the Physically Impaired classroom. Most of us were slowly being introduced into the general education setting, with plenty of support. One morning in October of 1989, we were regrettably informed that Ross was going to have a fire drill. Now, all the hours and days in the PI classroom, I don’t remember too many alarms. I daresay we didn’t leave for drills (or hear the alarm) as much as the other students. Because if you know anything about cerebral palsy, that startle response of o...

 It was probably some kind of mistake to teach A Wrinkle in Time to my ninth graders. It was originally written at a middle school level. On the other hand, Meg is in the 9th grade. Calvin is an advanced junior. We could lament the decline of the modern student, since I taught early high school, and L’Engle imagined some sixth graders—perhaps reaching a bit, even in 1960–taking it on. On the other hand, the allusions are so rich that literally any person can be enriched by it. I know I always am. Funny thing about the controversies around the book: I am inclined to think that a certain kind of ideology-motivated teacher loves “banned books” because it allows them to take shots at organized traditional religions, public school skeptics, and other politically “bad” people. This is literally the land of the free; you let me know, if any level of government moves to actually ban or prohibit a book. And no, offending your community on purpose isn’t a blow for freedom, Bob. We used to ca...

 These two concepts are kind of opposite each other when thinking about God. Immanence is the nearness of God; the closeness of God to humanity, as we seek purpose and fulfillment. Transcendence is the idea that God is wholly Other, above what he made, and some would say, uninvolved with creatures and the world. The Greeks absolutely believed this. You’re going to hit a wall with Greek philosophy, strictly speaking, for this reason. If the Church had not “baptized” Plato and Aristotle, it’s possible they get forgotten. Joseph Ratzinger, AKA Pope Benedict XVI, essentially says that the Incarnation is this nearness of God. Mankind’s reason vainly reaches as high as it can go, but God in Christ came down. This is who the unknown, unseen God is. Or, as he put it and St. John recorded it, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Our culture is quite messed up, but we’re so used to what Jesus actually did that we mock it in entertainment. The “Buddy Christ” statue from the film D...

 If memory serves, her birthday was March 1. And if I have my years right, she died in 2018, just before she would have turned 93. I saw her a few months before she died. When I think about being a Kettinger, she’s who I think of, along with my father and his siblings, both here, and in the hereafter. One of my brothers is not known for his churchgoing, but he read a Scripture at the Funeral Mass. Nailed it. I have never nailed anything like that in my life. It’s a bit hard to describe my career in simple terms, but if someone described me as a professional Bible reader, I couldn’t deny it. I still couldn’t have done it as well as my brother did that day. At some point, the faithful were invited to sing “On Eagles’ Wings.” I’ve always loved it, but now it’s forever associated with all the love I received from my grandmother, and the courageous life she lived. A dear friend said that he caught the priest rolling his eyes when the hymn started, but he sang it with gusto, like he wrot...

 I happen to believe that the fundamental principle of the Reformation, consistently applied, leads all the way to naturalism-atheism. Private judgment, encapsulated in Sola Scriptura. Blessedly, most people have no interest in severing every possible connection between themselves and the Catholic Church, if they are Christians. And as I work with Barthian Butler, and we talk about how to do ministry together, Sola Scriptura means practically, “We’re gonna mine this divinely inspired written word for everything it has,” not, “Let’s go evangelize the Catholics, before the Whore of Babylon leads them into Hell.” Dr. Cross is right, though: if your lexical tools and your hermeneutical method make it near-impossible to consider full communion with the Catholic Church, those things of themselves lead away from reunion, by the nature of the case. I bring this up with the haze from my recent arguments just beginning to clear. Remember Rachel Held Evans? (Eternal rest…) And she deserved so...

 I should probably be afraid of Italians with mustaches. Or men that wear sleeveless shirts and drive Camaros. I was beaten severely and verbally abused mere minutes after I heard Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” on the radio. No one would blame me, if I never wanted to hear it again. (It’s fine. A delightful song. Don’t worry. I’m happy. See what I did there?) If by some tragedy I started killing Italian men with mustaches who drove Camaros, a profiler would probably dig that up. Someone might even argue that I deserve some consideration, in light of my trauma. But I don’t have the right to generalize my trauma to those others. To use a lesser example, I don’t have the right to slander Italian guys with mustaches in general. My last blog post was probably overstated, as was the Facebook post that prompted it. To the extent that the overstatement was unwarranted, I acknowledge that, and regret the error. A lot of darkness can hide behind a pleasing facade. Beyond finding ou...

 And look, I’m not married. I’ve never been married. I have no children. I didn’t choose that; things just worked out that way. If you must know, I haven’t had sexual intercourse either. I probably should say “coitus,” so I am not arguing with some progressive activist about what “sexual intercourse” means. But I figured out from influencer videos or something what a “dead bedroom” was. Unless a couple mutually agrees that they don’t want to have sex/coitus anymore (hopefully to pray and serve) this is usually bad. I’ve known enough couples that it’s probably an indicator of trouble, especially for couples who are still able to have children. Is it really that wild to at least hope that Mr. and Mrs. Vance love each other? That a fourth child yet born at least might indicate that they enjoy each other?  Children are definitely not responsible for their parents’ happiness. That’s absolutely true. But wouldn’t any child hope their parents were happy, when they came into being? As...

 When I actually started college, the year started with “19.” When I returned to the big university, the son of a president had just defeated Al Gore, Jr. to have the privilege of becoming president himself. The inauguration was a few days into the new semester. About 9 months later, some radical monsters hijacked some airplanes and changed the world forever. I knew this kid from the dorm—I’m sorry, “residence hall”—who thought I was intriguing because I was profoundly disabled but a fire-breathing conservative Republican. He needed to find out how in the Sam Hill that could possibly happen. And he had that verbal dexterity that you find among liberal college kids. I’m the kid who correctly read the word “acrylic” when I was 9 on some intelligence test. My uncle handed me The Fountainhead at around the same time. Don’t get it twisted: As a Christian and Catholic theologian today, I could and would grind Ayn Rand’s whole philosophy to dust. But I was 13 when I actually finished Anth...