Safe Haven

5. I guess we can hardly fault them for mimicking us. You know what they say about imitation... 4. If there is no God, you don't get reward points, like anti-grace, no matter how many people watch your videos. 3. Cool, man. You don't want to read the Bible. What about Plato and Aristotle? They said God must exist. But whatever. They were obviously part of the Jesus Industrial Complex, before the fact. 2. If God doesn't exist, from whence do you get all that moral outrage? Your passion is no more valid than him you oppose. Wake me up when you get out of that Nietzschian nightmare. 1. You certainly do an awful lot of talking about Someone who doesn't exist. You're a lot like a woman, who professes her antipathy over and over. Her smart friends are shopping for deals on wedding invitations.

Do this one time. Go into your bathroom--I'm hopeful you have a big mirror--and just look at yourself. Some clothes or none; doesn't matter. Just do it. Look at yourself, and realize that how God made you is itself beautiful. Perhaps you have done something to harm yourself, or someone has done it to you. Pray to forget, for just some time. Just look. We are living, breathing, glorious miracles, and we forget. We forget the physical part of it. I'm not saying that we're not sinners, because we are. I'm not saying we couldn't change some things, even physically, because we could or might. Just look. I'm extra-special. If you met me, you'd see the broken right away. People tell me I have a great attitude. Horse manure. I can't speak for everyone, but I think he allowed my broken body to humble me. He knew a proud and rebellious spirit from the get-go. In any case, I swear I don't look enough. I don't see this glory that He made. I saw the lin...

5. Divine Sense Of Humor Department: Ronald Reagan and Bob Marley share a birthday. 4. Oppose Russia's "anti-gay" laws because the punishments are unduly harsh, not to affirm homosexuality. In fact, if Putin said he was passing these laws because these acts are contrary to the Natural Law, I salute him. 3. This is exactly what I hate about libertarianism. The reality that certain laws would be costly and unproductive to enforce is routinely conflated with "This behavior is socially acceptable, and morally correct." 2. Actually, the problem is that "socially acceptable" and "morally correct" mean the same thing to a libertarian. Legal positivism. We should rightly celebrate the ability we have to change our laws. But justice limits precisely how we change them. 1. Do we dare say that all laws derive not simply their sanction, but also their correspondence with justice, from the consent of the governed?

Dr. McKnight. Be received into the Catholic Church. The Church and the Kingdom are the same reality. The reason Paul doesn't fit is because you've been reading Paul through Luther , and not through Jesus. I just need to cut right to the chase.

It has been one of my firmest convictions for many years that I've been reading the Bible exactly backwards; that is, if we understood the fullness of (faithful) Israel's longing and expectation for the Messiah, we would die of wonderment and laughter at the faithfulness of God. We Gentiles are the younger son; we are the wild olive branch, and while that should humble us, it should also strengthen us. God kept his word to Israel , though they did not keep theirs. Salvation doesn't come by knowledge alone, by the intellect alone; dare I say, it doesn't come by "faith" alone, and yet, I am encouraged. Just to ponder the sheer majesty of the story of redemption casts away many trembles of the heart. My failures in recent weeks relate to forgetting the obvious: if God could bring the New Covenant out of Israel's faithlessness, can he not order my next steps? Listen to Nicole . My trouble is, I don't recognize suffering for what it is; I'm not even c...

Bruno Mars was great at the Super Bowl halftime show. Everyone kept their clothes on, (well, except the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but they're all guys, and that was horrible anyway) and everyone seemed to have a good time. "Locked Out Of Heaven" isn't going to win any chastity prizes (and neither is Bruno Mars, apparently) but I've seen worse on this halftime show. I'd say have him back next year. Or get John Legend. That guy is incredible. I heard complaints when Bruno was first announced, and Beyonce the year before, and I just have to bring it up: What segment of the Super Bowl viewing public is not comfortable with black people, and black music? Every year that I've heard pre-emptive complaints, it just so happens that the performer is a person of color. One year, one of my friends suggested AC/DC, and I just laughed. They haven't been legitimately popular since, what, 1982? My generation and certainly the ones after it have listened to pop music th...

5. Semi-pelagianism: The belief that man in his natural state is able to make the first move toward God, and then after that, God assists. (And not the other way around.) This has always been held to be false by the universal Church, though many great saints held such a view before it was judged heresy. 4. I wouldn't say that various personal difficulties in themselves have much to do with governing a state. Your inhuman agenda might, though. 3. I wouldn't trust a music magazine to accurately represent Catholic teaching. In fact, they aren't that great in their field of "expertise." "August And Everything After" was not an attempt at an iconic album; it is iconic. Rolling Stone is like the dumbest guy in a dorm-room philosophy discussion; everyone is hoping he shuts up and leaves before we all get dumber. 2. I'll say it again: If Pope Francis is a "Marxist," then so am I. 1. I don't have to make judgments about individuals and t...

Ephesians 2:11-22  is maybe my favorite text in the New Testament. I know, that's weird. But this text helped me to see what Paul was really saying, not only here, but in Romans and Galatians, and that helps us break out of the snare that is (Protestant) Reformation theology, to be rather blunt. Look at verse 11. He tells us he's addressing Gentiles right off the hop, and actually we should read "works" back in verse 10 as a Jewish member of the church would read it: not   by the works and ceremonies of the Law I've done my whole life, unlike those poor Gentiles, who never had it. "In the flesh" I think means, "ethnically" here, and as he goes on, it becomes clear. The Judaizers are a concern here also. Verse 12 is a restatement of Isaiah, Jeremiah and the "minor" prophets: Israel's consolation will be the incorporation of the Gentiles into God's People. Actually, this sounds a lot like Acts 2:39 right here, doesn't it, ...