Safe Haven

"A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."--The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America Many people simply refer to this text, and any discussion of the regulation of firearms simply ends. I'm not going to do that, because 1) a Christian worldview demands more careful reflection; 2) there is nothing sacrosanct about the Constitution itself, that is, it isn't a religious text, or sacred object, no matter how good or correct we think it to be; and 3) we have new challenges that the Founders could not have foreseen.  One of the great strokes of genius in our founding and its documents is the separation of powers. More than this, that the Constitution does not enumerate all the rights individuals may have, but rather limits what the government may licitly do with respect to the individual. The US Constitution limits th...

John 11:35. The shortest verse in the Bible. You may have known that. What you may not have ever pondered is how weird the situation is. Jesus knows Lazarus is ill; he stays where he is. He waits for Lazarus to die, then goes down there. Why? Lots of answers in the grand scheme suggest themselves, but not in the moment. You can understand why Jesus gets questioned about this from even those who know he isn't just some guy from down the street. It's absolutely true that the just will get it all back at the resurrection. What great faith! But Jesus has even bigger plans. He knows exactly what he's going to do. It's in that context that Jesus wept. "He's in a better place" might be true, but it's beside the point. Death, sorrow, and all the rest may be here, but they don't belong. So much so that the Master of life and death cried. If he were not God in the flesh, we might say he "ugly-cried." He couldn't abide it for one secon...

One of the best in the business. My teacher. Everyone from young children to the learned and aged has been benefiting from Dr. Nguyen's good gifts, and this is a good example. For my part, I think that if the sacred pastors want to say, "Catechesis is really poor, and puts people at risk of ending up in some painful situations," that's what they should say. It is undesirable, to say the least, to cast doubt on the efficacy of the sacraments, even unwittingly, in the name of compassion. Lord God, by Your Holy Spirit, help us all to discern truth from error, that we may enter boldly and unstained into the wedding feast of the Lamb. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

I'll continue hammering the Democrats, and anyone else who thinks this is a real argument for killing defenseless human beings in the womb. If you're not able to grasp the basic argument, you might be right about dozens of other affronts to human dignity, but your moral authority over me is exactly zero. Just so we understand one another.

You make my social media feed interesting, that's for sure. I can't decide if you are crazy, or just willfully provocative. Believe it or not, I like that. Holy Mother Church is still waiting for you. I will certainly gloat when we get Russell Moore. And we will. Resistance is futile. In other news, you need someone to your left who is not insane, and not Alan Noble. Excuse me, Dr. Alan Noble. I'm happy to help.

Let me be direct, and brief: you can't settle the question of whether to baptize infants or not from Scripture alone. Strictly speaking, Scripture doesn't "say" anything. All appeals to Scripture are appeals to an interpretation of Scripture. Once you get past all the impressive citations of particular passages, it's an unwinnable argument, from either side. Bad faith and theological-dogmatic relativism are the most obvious results. This is very simply why we have a Magisterium in holy mother Church, and why said Church claims to be the one Christ founded, because it is. It is reasonable to believe such because that which all Christians hold in common despite their divisions cannot be accounted for without the authority of the Catholic Church. And such an authority, so visible, and so constant through these many centuries, must be divine, if we grant that God has spoken at all. There does need to be an acknowledgment that the paedobaptist--despite his efforts ...

I've blogged about this Kenny Loggins album before. But I had a new reason, when Spotify took one of the tracks off the album. I was kind of mad. Anyway, I went to iTunes, and sure enough, if you want the song, "If You Believe," you must buy the whole album. So I did. I'm not given to fideism; that is, to believing without a reason or reasons, so it seems odd to draw insight and titles from pop singers, and angsty Lutheran philosphers. And Kenny won't be everyone's cup of tea. He was always on the sentimental side, and this is the last album he did that was conceptually (and theologically) coherent. He got New Age-y after this, and that won't do anyone any good. Still, this album is pretty great, 25 years later. [Yikes!--ed.] Yeah. Anyway, aside from the insightful greatness of "Conviction Of The Heart," I was struck by a few lines from another song called, "Now Or Never." He sings in part: "And tell him that love is why we...