Safe Haven

Wow. I'm looking smart today . I just said all that, didn't I? That's cool. Why is my traffic going down? [Because you are boring.--ed.] Mayhaps. But why are you so mean? I would tell you to go to Confession if you weren't such a stubborn, hapless pagan. [I thought you said we were Christians?--ed.] Yes. But you I fear may not make it. [As for hapless paganism, you would know.--ed.] See? That's what I mean.

Let me start by saying that John Roberts is a great Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He understands what the separation of powers is supposed to mean, and he has a long track record of deference to the legislative branch as representatives of the people. And with the health care law, this is exactly what he did: he presumed the law constitutional (as is his obligation) and then he tested that presumption in the light of Congress's enumerated powers. He was also constrained by the precedent of other decisions to try to find a possible interpretation that supports its constitutionality. And that's what he did. Our partisan fights over the role of judges and courts have obscured the tensions within the Right, broadly speaking, about what courts should do, as this points out. Libertarians construe our rights as grounded in our individual liberty, and thus, view everything that happens in the political realm as something to be judged absolutely in light of those inalienable ri...

Mr. Butler will be pleased to know that I've begun my essay on Karl Barth. I'll bet a lot of people liked Karl Barth personally. I certainly do. There is no way you could read "Prayer" and not appreciate the man, on a human level. That's why any assessment of him, no matter how ultimately negative with respect to his theology, must be done according to objective theological norms (which Mother Church abundantly provides). I now therefore realize that the Catechism will need employing, and that with great care. I used to think a heretic was a charmless Jesus-hater that nobody liked. Seriously. The whole time I was Protestant, it meant something like, "really really mean bad man." [What are you, an idiot?--ed.] But in theology, it means roughly, "one who holds a false opinion about God obstinately." Well, in order to recognize a false opinion, you need the body of true things about God. A lot of heretics might be charmless Jesus-haters with no f...

What do I think of the trade of Kevin Youkilis ? As strategy, it's ambiguous to bad. Purely as a fan who knows about the odd synergy between the fans, their team, and its special players, this is idiotic. This is the Red Sox equivalent of the Cardinals trading Willie McGee . [They did, you idiot.--ed.] And it was dumb. But he came back. And he could have played 5 more years and hit .203 and no Cardinals fan would have uttered a peep. The 3 most untouchable, revered, and beloved Cardinals of all time are: 1. Stan The Man, 2. Ozzie, and 3. Willie. That's just the way these things are. I utterly hate the Red Sox, and I don't know a great deal about that "unwritten" fans' history, but I do know that Youkilis is one of those guys. He'll be back. They might have to fire Bobby Valentine first, but "Youk" will be back with Boston, mark my words. As of now, the front office has ruptured the bond between the team and its fans, and probably increased the i...

I want to swear. Loudly. This will be a rant, and you'll just have to deal with it. First off, I hate social media. I've almost deactivated my Facebook account 20 times. No, not because I don't have time, though there are definitely better things to do with it. No, not because discussion threads make me angry, though often they do. More on that in a moment. No. I hate it because it flashes a big giant billboard at least 3 times a week (metaphorical; stay with me here) that says, "That person still hates you! Look! She's all over Facebok, talking to your friends, but not you! Don't you feel awesome!" Thanks, Zuckerberg. You billionaire &^#!&. I'm blaming you, because I ran out of reasons to blame myself, and blaming others didn't help. Why do I have to be reminded of perhaps the most painful thing that's ever happened to me ALL THE TIME? How is that fair? And seriously, don't call me and ask me about this. I'm doing bad, OK? Bad....

It seems to me that there is a cowardly timidity among Christian leaders in the public sphere. On the one hand, I can appreciate the fact that engagement has not always been to Kingdom purposes. It is very possible that the gospel has been identified with a political program. I understand that desire to speak prophetically to all factions. Even so, it seems only the political Right hears the tsking of some . I'm gonna speak bluntly to my good friend here, and trust that the brotherhood we have in Jesus isn't doubted in the process. You want to be liberal? Fine. You want to hammer the Right all day long? Fine. You want to doubt the wisdom of natural ethics as applied to modern America? Fine. Stupid, but fine. But you have an obligation to speak Christian truth in this public space as a disciple of Jesus Christ, no matter who it offends . And I would appreciate the public space to defend myself in like manner. You don't have to agree with me. I don't care. But I tire of...

First things first. Pray for Jenny, everyone. I remember going to a trivia night for her when this battle first started. To be perfectly honest, cancer scares the hell out of me, and I didn't know what to say. But we'd met each other in a bible study, and everybody to a person says that Jenny makes everyone else feel better, and that's true. You're darn right, every winner gave the money back to Jenny. What would you do? We have to take everything as it comes, whether good or bad. And we know that He's good, even if the way things seem makes us doubt it. All that said, if "fair" has any meaning, this is unfair. O Good Lord, I pray your unseen purposes be fulfilled in this. More than that, I offer my sufferings, if so doing helps Jenny in any way. Jenny, you can find my contact information on Facebook, if you need another ear or shoulder.

What that guy said. Prayers and well-wishes, Father.

Wow, 75 pageviews today, and I hadn't even written anything! Thank you! My childhood friend Kelly got suckered into a couple playlists on Spotify I made: the "Whitney" one, (predictable) and "JK's Love Mix" (oh, my!). On the other hand, I'm listening to Taylor Swift . She's outstanding. I tried to hate her, because she's everywhere, monopolizes the radio, (and not just country radio, mind you) and all her songs are about teenage-girl love. But I know good songs; I can tell you who you'll listen in 20 years without shame. And the truth is, she's one of those people. The passion for the up-tempo "boys suck!" songs may cool, but when she slows it down to be brokenhearted, it's memorable, well-written--by her--and enjoyable. "Tim McGraw" was her very first song; I dare you not to like it. "Teardrops On My Guitar" is a song I love, and the young woman hadn't even given us what has become her signature s...

The irrepressible Bryan Cross sends this reply to my monstrous post from yesterday, blocked by an obviously Protestant combox: "And so he gets an unfair reputation in some quarters as trying to intimidate with many words." If article-length replies entail an attempt to "intimidate," all academics who write book-length replies must ipso facto be bullies. Perhaps twenty years from now, anything beyond a tweet-length reply will be considered an attempt to intimidate, and those who now think I am trying to "intimidate" with article-length replies, will themselves be dismissed as bullies for writing three paragraphs. A thorough reply should not be assumed to be an "attempt to intimidate," because it might very well be only an attempt to be thorough, as the first and greatest commandment of love calls us to love God with all our mind. Otherwise all the great doctors of the Church in her two-thousand year history were ipso facto uncharitable bullies f...

Ross Douthat: (h/t, John Armstrong ) The real-Jesus project, though intended as a rebuke to biblical literalism, has ended up vindicating modern fundamentalism twice over. One the one hand, the self-understanding of fundamentalists depends on the assumption that once you depart even an iota from a literal-factual-commonsensical reading of Scripture you’re on a slippery slope to denying basic Christian dogmas–which if course is exactly what most of the historical Jesus popularizers believe as well! (The example of a figure like Ehrman, who lost his faith completely when he went to graduate school and realized that actual human beings might have been involved in the composition of the gospels, is almost a parody of a fundamentalist cautionary tale.) At the same time, the way that many fundamentalists actually interpret the Bible–through Cyrus Scofield’s dispensationalist framework–is precisely the sort of do-it-yourself Christianity that real-Jesus “scholarship” implicitly encourages. ...

Hello, friends. As a sidebar before I even start, certain enthusiastic Lutherans asked me to call a little more often. I'm notoriously bad about this; for one, I hate talking on the phone. An impersonal device where I cannot see a person's face and they can't see mine is not my idea of a good time. [You do it all the time.--ed.] But it is a concession to time and distance; nothing more. And I wouldn't know anything about the impersonality of technology causing painful ruptures in my relations. [Ouch.--ed.] I know, right? In any case, I will get better. I was feeling a little bog of sadness that I didn't want to foist on him. Anyway, that Bryan guy is at it again. Michael Horton needs to give this its due attention. But I also know that Bryan's philosophical nature and attention to detail causes problems he does not intend. There is ground in the discussion that has been trod over many times, which many interlocutors have not seen, not accounted for, and noted....

I have two Facebook friends who always post statuses at night right before they sleep. Quite frankly, I already know that people who sleep at night are tired. If you were at my house and wanted to wish me goodnight, obviously, I won't spurn it. But I would be utterly unshocked to find that you are tired every night at say, 11:30. If you truly believe this forum to be a giant virtual house and we are the Waltons, tag me. I'll be more than happy to return your appeal for friendship affirmation couched in the form of 'I'm tired' with all the affection I can muster. Failing that, though, I must conclude that you simply are vain, and you need attention from others up 'til the very moment you pass from consciousness to sleep. I've known vain people; there are worse things. [Yeah, you're vain. You blather on pointlessly in the hope someone cares.--ed.] I agree. But writers are a special kind of vain. A writer knows that you don't have to read the book or o...

It has been said by an endless parade of wise people that all they ever learned that was important was given them by someone else. I am certainly no exception, even if what I was given was a lesson in what not to do. In any case, the question of this blog in general is, "Who is Jesus Christ, and why does it matter?" Of course, you may have noticed that I've written many other things not concerned with that question, at least not directly. And that reason is that people are fascinating. God was so "fascinated" by us and in love with us that He became one of us, to rescue us from ourselves, from sin, and Satan. Life without the God who made us is utterly pointless, and quite literally impossible. Some of you begin to think I've become some sort of crazy person, becoming Catholic, and daring to insist that to be Christian is to be Catholic, eventually. It isn't my idea, and it isn't the product of me being a convert, or any faults of mine, real or imag...

 The reason there's an existential crisis in the hermeneutical process enshrined in Sola Scriptura is that the humility of submission to God is undercut and obscured by the fact that the final arbiter of what the Bible says is the individual. We can have lots of mediating authorities--the church as we understand it, creeds, and whichever parts of church history we choose to accept, but it's still on us, in this setting. The Westminster Confession of Faith says it this way: "The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." [The Holy Spirit! See! Not me, not you!--ed.] Ah, but that's exactly where the Noltie Conundrum comes in, and makes the crisis acute. What Christian is going to say he lacks the Spirit's guidanc...

"Invest in green jobs"= pay off your campaign contributors .

I miss the old days. Close friends just a button-push away. That seems like lifetimes ago. Think I'd ask for some advice now. The "fan club" met together on Saturday when I was hoping to see her. The wrong one asked me to the movies. I said OK. It's "Brave," that new Disney/Pixar movie. It looks good. I'll go and have a good time. I think the one I like knows. [Why don't you just tell her?--ed.] How well has that worked out? I was just thinking today that I'm too old to play games, and too young not to care. Sorry to complain. I've done a lot of complaining. It gets in your head, being alone. I've felt really insecure about it and I've put it on others sometimes. I'm so sorry about that. I've been talking to "Mom" and St. Therese about the whole thing. I know they're holding me up so I don't lose my steps. You can take shortcuts, but the thing about Satan's shortcuts is they never make you happy, and the...

Well, I told you I'd tell the story of how I'm going to remember the Old Testament books. For some of you, the list may be painful, since you only recognize 66 books in the Bible. The first and best reason you're wrong is because Mother Church says there are 73. This may not be fair, but it seems like people said, "Let's come up with a completely arbitrary number less than 73, and blame the difference on Catholics and their weird doctrines." I digress. Sorry. Without further ado, the JK Story of The Old Testament: The first 5 books of the Old Testament are called the Pentateuch-- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy . Moses died and left Joshua in charge. After that, "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" because Israel had no king. So God raised up the Judges . It was a sucky time in general, though highlighted by the story of Ruth . Well, Israel begged for a king, though God already was, so God gave them one with an assist...

It strikes me as important to say that why we hold something to be true is at least as important as the fact that we do, provided that thing we hold corresponds to true truth. Because the reason why will tell us if we are being principled and/rational in the holding. The whole Crossian notion of Protestantism as ecclesial deism rests on the claim/premise that to hold the Nicene Christology as true without the visible Church gifted with the charism that makes it true is unprincipled. To explore the basis for why Nicea is true is to discover the continuity at the heart of the Catholic Church. But look at it another way: to hold it without a principled basis isn't the end of the world; in fact, it may well save your soul. The bad part is, there's nothing in the principles of Protestantism (which ultimately reduces to the primacy of individual Scriptural interpretation) to prevent a very opposite conclusion. We're not saying--I'm certainly not saying--that every Reformed g...

This is a defense of Sola Scriptura, I guess. Isn't this the mighty Leithart? Isn't he supposed to know more than us? Mother Church cowers in fear! After all, we didn't know the Spirit speaks to the Church! Why didn't you say so? If I have to believe in Sola Scriptura in order to really understand Scripture, I'll just put off that reading of Amos I was going to do. I mean, I'll just clutter it up, deferring to the bishops in Council, or those morons Augustine and Aquinas. I don't know what's so hard to understand about the problem. Tell you what, Leithart, riddle me this one: Jack Collins and Gerhard Forde in a room, explaining their respective theologies to a class of eager and receptive students. Lots of agreement. Lots of appeals to the Fathers, and to Scripture. But if Scripture is the final rule, who's right in the matters where they disagree? Do they not represent separate ecclesial bodies because those people believe this to be a much more...