Safe Haven

I don't think that it's a terribly big jump to say that I had to deny Scripture's formal sufficiency, (Sola Scriptura) because if it were true, we would not see all these earnest Christians debating each other  about what it says. I was ready to listen to an alternate accounting of the rule of faith, precisely because it would be unreasonable to believe my invocation of the Holy Spirit had been any more dispositive than the guy next to me, who would go to another church, profess other doctrines, all the while believing Sola Scriptura and inerrancy, et cetera. You can't hector the Catholic Church from "Scripture" without knowing, or at least asserting, that the interpretation you have is divine. But recall, even with the window-dressing of "derivative authority"--which is actually the mechanism which admits creeds, confessions, and the like--there is no mechanism within the system that makes the interpretation I hold more true than any other one. Yo...

In a way, we're not all that different. The most wicked person you know and the best have nothing between them but this: the good man correctly apprehends his situation. He knows that he is but dust; he seeks God's mercy continually; he responds to the graces given him as he becomes aware. The wicked are not so. They think their good name is written in the stars; they think they owe nothing to anyone; they think they have been put upon, that people owe them affection and accolades, respect and deference. The just man sees the distance between himself and true holiness, and, by God's grace, strives to make tomorrow better than today. Have you ever dreamed of your children, if you have yet to have any? I have. I know some truly great men; I have watched their children praise them at the city gates; the emotion of the thing will melt you into a puddle. But you can't get there in a day. I learn each day that those fathers and mothers made a thousand little choices e...

There are people in this world governed by their passions, even if not the obvious ones. I might even say I could use, or could have used, some balance and decorum at times. A man without reason is dangerous indeed. The truth is, though, I don't trust people who don't feel, who don't express something sometimes. I shouldn't, and neither should you. Physical and moral evil is not theoretical, it's as real as you or me, in a certain sense, and we know that we are flawed if we fail to notice. Some are more Spock than Kirk, and that's fine. If we are healthy though, we weep when we should weep, and we laugh when we should laugh. You don't "get over" losing a parent. (I don't know about losing a child, but I trust that's true as well.) You don't "heal" from those things; the mercy is greater and more painful than that. You carry it around with you. You can't simply endure it, either; it's a thing that is part of who you...

5. I just realized that unless we are friends, or you have written a scholarly book, I don't care what you have to say on this subject. 4. What's with leftists and comedians from whom they get political "news?" I could elaborate the flaws of conservative talk radio all day long, but say this for most of them: they don't confuse satire with argument. 3. I haven't read the president's Selma speech yet, but I'm sure it was great. No, really. The president has a disease I like to abbreviate KPFNGR, or, "Killing People For No Good Reason." Aside from that, and a cynical bet that nobody really takes religion all that seriously, he says the reasonable thing 32.7 percent of the time. What he does rarely matches what he says, but there you go. 2. I still don't think Brian Williams did anything wrong. 1. I don't think saying, "Homosexuality is a choice" should make you a pariah, either. I think the GOP advocating the rest of u...