Safe Haven

5 Thoughts For Today 5. I'm not one to go around declaring judgment on people. But neither do I abandon our culture and people under the pretense of being "winsome" for the gospel. #hipsterliberalfail. 4. If you say you will fight, but not in the public space, you've already lost. 3. I wonder if my generation just isn't into being hated? Read the gospels lately? 2. Jeff Bagwell gets a vote on my Hall of Fame ballot. 1. It still mystifies me that people so concerned about the coercive power of government still mostly favor the death penalty, the ultimate expression of state coercion. To be opposed is fundamentally a more conservative position.

Fine. I admit it. I am resistant to change. I kept the same ancient flip-open cell phone for 6 years. I had three cracks to get a state-of-the-art power wheechair, and I got the same chair--or close to it--each time. I want 2 things from a power 'chair: 1) Speed; and 2) Toughness. That's why a Quickie P-2 series chair is the one I like. You can't break it. Slam it into doors, walls, whatever you want. Metal foot-rests. With mainly metal parts. And batteries you don't have to think about. Other companies, take note. I digress. All that is to say, I stick with what works. Feel free to dismiss me therefore as an unenlightened stick in the mud. Maybe I am. But at heart, a traditionalist is not afraid of change or of new things; on the contrary, the best of us help point the way to the future. A traditionalist does not uncritically adopt anything, but assimilates it as best he can with what he already knows. The internet and all related technology is a great breakthrough...

5 Thoughts For Today 5. I resent the implication that strong men don't cry. It's BS. If you can take one honest look around the world and not cry about something, the problem is you. There's probably a reasonable limit, sure. But this goes for the chauvinist counter-reaction, too: You're peddling a lie. I don't trust people who don't show their feelings, somehow. 4. No, the Republicans did not win the fiscal cliff discussions. Nor would it have been some great moral failure if no deal was struck. I don't believe in bipartisanship; I believe in good policy, and this had none. 3. Don't call me a "friend" unless you mean it. If you are one, you have my fiercest loyalty. 2. They made the mistake of thinking they were important. Hey NHL and players: We can find other things to do with our time and money. The game made you, not the other way around. 1. I wonder if the people who say they don't watch TV and the people who say they don...

5 Thoughts For Today 5. Ecclesial agnosticism---dogmatic agnosticism---agnosticism---atheism. 4. "Those days flew by/Like a priest just passing through/Once when I was little." 3. A question may deserve an answer, quite independently of whether you or your tribe are asking it. 2. Funniest Star Trek, TNG Banter Ever: [Riker and Chief O'Brien sit at a nearby table, observing the interaction between Dr. Katherine Pulaski and Kyle Riker, Riker's father] Riker [horrified, as he watches Katherine and Kyle kiss and embrace]: They know each other! O'Brien [looking]: Yeah. I know her, too. We don't do that . 1. I'm going to start using, "Lower your shields!" as a plea for greater emotional availability. [That's incredibly dorky.--ed.] Oh, lower your shields! [Oh, geez.--ed.]

I'm praying as I type this. I'm sure you are aware that this desire is the strongest natural one we have. And that is an unqualified good, insofar as it would prevent the extinction of the human race, among other things. But people often express this desire in all manner of destructive ways, and at the wrong times. You don't need the details, I'm sure. And I'll just tell you, I've gone about as wrong as you can, while still not bringing lives to ruin. Often in the spiritual life, you learn more from failing than from succeeding. Which is not to say it is better to fail. I mean only that the special humility that shame often produces is good for those who would be proud. I think the failure to distinguish concupiscence from sin has the undesirable effect of completely obliterating the distinction between temptation and sin in the sphere of sexuality in practical (Protestant) life. Aside from the dumb things I actually did, I felt bad for every desire I ever h...

We're a long way from publication on this Romans stuff, but I wanted to hold you over: 5 Thoughts On Romans 5. This is pretty fierce theologically for a letter that says, "Dudes, give me money to go to Spain." 4. St. Paul can say more in 3 words than I can in a year. 3. If my future wife ever asks to watch any Kardashians on the TV, I'm gonna yell out, "May it never be!" 2. "The righteousness of God," for the win! 1. It's the beginning of a joke: "Dr. Luther, Dr. Hahn, and Origen walk into a bar..."

Save yourself some time . I wish I had this man's clarity of thought. But I can think back to when the problem of fallibility became acute. It's when and why I looked into the Catholic Church. As I recall, I wrote of an "Abyss Of Relativism." This is that. I will readily grant that Protestants and Catholics would be in a similar epistemic position, in the absence of evidence for the claim of infallibility. But it seems to me that this other man needs to investigate that claim, and the evidence offered, rather than merely assert that it is false. By the way, it's still arbitrary and ad hoc to accept the first two Councils while rejecting the others, especially using a principle and a method the Fathers knew nothing about. To even use Sola Scriptura, wouldn't one be asserting that one's own interpretation is the measure by which all others are judged? And that applies to history itself. Some ecclesial body ("the Church") can't really be a c...

You need to understand. Or at least I want you to understand. I'm not Catholic as a pin on my lapel, or as a sports team for whom I root. I am Catholic. I do not prefer Catholicism; it is quite simply, the only choice that makes sense. When you're on the journey from Reformed/Protestant to Catholic, you don't really know that's what you're doing. I was just asking questions. It's not right to say the answers didn't satisfy me; they ought not satisfy anyone. I've talked with other people stuck in groupthink, and that's what happens: slogans are said to make the inquisitor shut up, and keep the others from wondering. I guess it works on some people. Not me. And it never has. It's not anti-Reformed to ask where the ecumenical councils came from; neither is it to ask where the end-point of a(n) hermeneutical process (or at least what it looks like) terminates. You can blather on about authorial intent 'til you are 172, but unless you know what ...