Safe Haven

I'm sure this is convincing to someone , but not to me. I cannot help but note the irony of a small sliver of Reformed Baptists (whatever that means) attempting to speak for all of Christendom. Don't you need some kind of ID to speak for the "Church"? Am I just talking to myself? Paging Fred Noltie! At least Dr. Mohler left out "alone" when he spoke of justification. That was an act of charity, if you will pardon the pun.

1. Every person is the product of a sexual union between a man and a woman. 2. The instruments of that sexual union are in fact the distinguishing features of the man and woman, respectively. 3. A new person is the product of that sexual union; the sexual union is intrinsically (that is, by its nature) designed to produce a person. 4. The ravages of age or disease do not fundamentally alter the sexual union; that is, they are defects when they occur, not a change in the purpose or end of the act. 5. Pleasure is a secondary effect of the sexual union. 6. Any act that makes sexual pleasure into the primary end is intrinsically disordered. 7. Therefore, homosexual sexual acts, masturbation, and any other acts which make pleasure the primary end are intrinsically disordered.

It's improbably hard to qualify for the postseason in baseball: 3 division champions in each league, and 2 wild cards in each league, for a total of 10. In truth, there are only 8 teams out of the 30, because the two wild cards must now play each other in a one-game scenario that is new for this year. The St. Louis Cardinals make it look commonplace. They sit atop the National League Central division, with a record of 94-65. They need only to win 1 of the final 3 games to win the Central outright. They cannot fail to qualify for the postseason even if they lost all 3. In addition, any loss by Pittsburgh gives them the division anyway. So, the team with 18 World Series appearances and 11 wins--second only to the Yankees--will make another run. You have to wonder how a team in a fairly small city like St. Louis wins so often. More than that, they will finish second in home attendance in all of baseball, trailing only the Los Angeles Dodgers. Having lived here all my life, I can onl...

Because for the Catholic, the Scripture is not a thing that creates the community; it is revelation given to that community as a gift, a community whose very existence presupposes the divine origin of the message. It is not established or even reaffirmed by the outcome of an historical-critical process; in fact, whether those tools have been correctly used is tested against the Church's own self-understanding and faith. Insofar as this has been forgotten or obscured by Catholics, this causes the tension between faith and scholarship that is the hallmark of Modernism and liberal Protestantism. As much as it may be a liberation for some to deny some inerrancy in some contexts, because it had been captive to an elitism of scholarship and tribalism, we cannot do it. Just thought you'd like to know.

Some people hate Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. I get that. It doesn't quite hang together, or zing, or something. But the events from the previous film leave Kirk with the responsibility of taking Spock's now-living body back to the planet Vulcan, in the hope of reuniting his soul (now residing in Dr. McCoy) with that body. Yes, I realize this is metaphysically incoherent to start with. Just go with me, until we get to the good part. The long process--which is dangerous to Spock and McCoy--is successful, and in the penultimate scene, we get this exchange between Kirk, and Spock's father, Sarek: Sarek: Kirk, I thank you. What you have done is-- Kirk [interrupting]: What I have done is what I had to do. Sarek: But at what cost? Your ship. Your son. [Let me remind the reader that this Kirk doesn't know what he thinks of all this religious jazz. He's respectful always, but guarded.] Kirk: If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul. You...

I mean, honestly . Why does he even bother asking why he's my favorite, at this point? If you're gonna read a blog other than this one...and I'm not saying I agree with him on everything. That's obvious. I've never regretted reading a single post. Actually, if you know Joel personally, this post is the epitome of Joel. Humanity. Love. Just trying to follow God. I don't know if he's a "liberal" or whatever the Sam Hill he calls himself these days, but I don't care. Joel is my theological Dane Cook: whatever he says will be 1) funny, 2) true, and/or 3) make people uncomfortable. "Joel, I went to library the other day, and I checked out 1000 books!" "No, you did NOT! Why would anyone need 1000 books? Who would read the end-product of this particular project? And if you did, you should say, "I was in the library today, and I spawned another library today." Heh.

I had the most "heretical" political thought yesterday or so: What if this Islamic terrorism, while not morally acceptable at any time, is an entirely predictable response to American military and oligarchic economic hegemony? Don't guerrilla forces do stuff like this all the time? If you can't win a fair fight, you make the other guys 1) terrified, and 2) believe that you are crazy nut-bars who will do anything. [They might actually be crazy nut-bars.--ed.] Fair enough.