Safe Haven

The easiest Christian thing to say in the whole Josh Duggar mess is, "Don't we all have a little of that in us?" Well, yes. And I guess we still need to remind ourselves of that, since many professed Christians seem to join in the cultural chorus of treating certain heinous sinners like non-people. I had another thought though, as I pondered my own failings, and sought mercy: we have a sacramental system, and we make frequent use of the sacraments, not because we lack confidence in God's love, but because we want to remain ourselves. That is, the change from a holy person into a wicked one is often slow, and maybe imperceptible. Isn't one of the tragic parts of these public falls that people live a double life? You can't do that unless your friendship with the one who knows you best atrophies. Moralists aren't often wrong about what is moral, but without a shared life, they are just rules, like words on signs. Having God as your friend is like walking ...

Most people who get motivated by politics are idealists; even the people who get angry about their opponents in politics are idealists. If we don't stop these people, they're going to destroy everything. Isn't it funny how everyone says that? That shows me that we have a lot of passion, and not a lot of wisdom. There's an intellectual virtue of listening and reflecting; I know I don't have it. The biggest problem with the "left" as it were, is that they believe two huge lies: That an unborn baby is not a person, and that nobody in Heaven and earth cares--or should--about what I do with my sexuality. Actually, replace "sexuality" with "money," and you've described a pretty big chunk of the "right," also. And of course, a few of them haven't bothered to wrestle with that fundamental realization of human personhood, either. A lot of people are cynical about politics right now, and I suppose I understand that. Our poli...

It's awesome in various ways. If you are a sensualist and a sinner, you have already thought of the words "drinking" and "free love". If they were in no way related to the good, it stands to reason, they would not be pleasurable. Do we exist for pleasure, however? And our own, at that? It would seem not. The pretense that universities exist for higher things strongly suggests that they once did. And I say that, not merely to suggest a wistfulness about days gone by, as if the days passing itself has caused whatever is lacking, but that what has been lost is truth about ourselves. What is the purpose of knowledge? If I may be momentarily pedantic, the purpose of knowledge is to know. Whether what we know has any great value will depend on how well we order the various goods, and how well we share them. We become sharers of knowledge and even teachers because we want others to love, and therefore know, the highest things. The highest subject you can study is the...

It's my favorite Kenny Loggins song , and really, it's not close. Look, I get it. Hippies, socialists, eco-wackos, yadda yadda. This song is a gold mine, lyrically speaking. I don't know how to make cool videos on the internet, but if I did, I would make a montage of this song with quotes from Laudato Si. This song is Laudato Si. I was lurking around the internet yesterday, when I caught sight of Confirmation Sponsor Guy picking apart some emotivist "conservative" argument about something or other. My life goal, one of them, is to make an argument about something political that he doesn't pick apart. I wish myself luck. I wish us all luck on that one! I just think it's funny that some folks make a big fuss about being the Party of God, the same God who said, "Behold, I am making all things new!" and when the leader of the People of God says something like, "Hey, everything is connected, because Jesus became incarnate to give his life for...

MLB Network had one of their games from Toronto. Toronto is loaded, no doubt. The Bombers will have to fight. But they have That Thing. It's in the water here in St. Louis, but it's that weird chemistry that makes no sense on paper, but means October baseball. It's oozing out of their ears. The Yankees commentators pointed out that the GM Brian Cashman stood pat at the trade deadline, because these young guys had played together; he knew they had That Thing. I saw it before the year started; I called it. These so-called "experts," I tell you. Do they even watch this game?

The biggest temptation for any person is to live a lie; we all have moments where we just say, "Sod it all, I don't care." I'm the weakest person I know; my file on "sins of weakness" (as opposed to malice) is the biggest one they have, I'm sure. You might be able to say the same. But I had a firm decision yesterday; I'm not going to deny reality to make myself happy; I'm not going to deny it to make others happy. People do this all the time. Getting along is easier than speaking hard truth. You might have to say, "Mental illness is real, and you need to face it," or "Abortion is murder," or any number of things. Not wanting to rock the boat could be an exercise of prudence, or a failure of fortitude, and it's not always easy to discern. But if you let people continue in horribly unhealthy or immoral patterns for years at great cost to yourself without doing anything at all to change it, it's probably the latter. I...

Most Christians you meet are not arrogant enough to think all they need is themselves, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible; they are going to make an argument from history and the creeds at some point. This is why Mathison's attempted distinction between Sola Scriptura and "Solo Scriptura" is so popular, when faced with the Catholic challenge. It has a surface plausibility; the Reformation has persisted for almost 500 years; everyone you know would think 500 years is a long time. If you appeal to an idea or a doctrine that is at least 500 years old, give or take, most people would credit you with the rootedness and historical awareness that you desire to project. The problem is with biting the bullet, and saying that the Reformation commitments were there from the very beginning. The result of that bold commitment is to essentially consign great luminaries like Augustine and Aquinas to a purgatory (metaphorical, of course) for questionable ecclesiology and soteriology. Which...