Safe Haven

5. Anselm is hard. 4. I should have studied philosophy in college. 3. I like this Jimmy Mitchell. I also love Jim Brickman, no matter what anyone else says about it. 2. Maybe I can get Devin Rose to mail a free copy of The Protestant's Dilemma to Dr. Alan Noble of Christ and Pop Culture magazine! Aww, heck, Alan! Just read this one . [Mathison definitely isn't trying to make people Catholic.--ed.] That's the beauty of it. [How rude!--ed.] What Mathison pretends not to know won't hurt anyone. 1. Or we could just pretend it's all Bryan Cross' fault. That's what I do.

5. I always think someone is a jerk when they are disliked by the media. [(chortle)--ed.] 4. Albert Pujols has now hit 500 HR. With a batting mark of .321. With about half the strikeouts as any other power hitter ever. 3. "You're kidding?" Stat Of The Day: Tony Gwynn, (Sr.) AKA, The Fat Guy Who Played For The Padres, (sorry, Tony) stole 56 bases in 1987. 2. I hate fish fries, frankly. But no, I don't think there is a bigger fish to fry than figuring out what God said, and how we know. 1. "Stop Killing People!" still looks like a great campaign slogan to me.

5. I failed (withdraw-fail) an English class in college because I was late too many times. That one bummed me out; he looked a bit like Brett Favre. And Brett Favre is awesome, in spite of himself. 4. Beauty queens age well, as long as they don't do anything stupid. That's why they're beauty queens. 3. If I become famous, I can say, "I put my pants on the same way as everyone else." On the other hand, can I still say it, given the fact that I outsource that activity? 2. I'm bringing a bag of Fritos to a party chock-full of health-conscious people. 1. Mary is the quintessential mother, obviously. Mother of the Church, and spiritual mother to all Christians. If the apparitions are to be believed, however, Mary never "stays at home."

This is what Sola Scriptura should be called, because that's what it is. It's the right of interpretive veto power over any supposed "church" and its juridical and doctrinal decisions. What it means is that there is no real principled difference between "Solo Scriptura" and "Sola Scriptura". Granted, to create a concept of "derivative authority" to some creed or other thing does create more skin in the game, as it were, to foster the inertia of consensus that's required to maintain some semblance of contact with orthodoxy. But eventually, you're going to break the axiom--Oh, let's call it "JK's Axiom #1"--"One cannot be both the arbiter of divine revelation, and a humble receiver of it at the same time." A naturalist is a person who has used his interpretive veto power to not only question every church, but to question the existence of God. Here's the kicker, though: he's definitely a Protestant...

5. I'm grumpy today. Perhaps tomorrow's trip to The Box is well-timed. 4. [Isn't it a little flippant to refer to the Sacrament of Penance with a thinly-veiled sports analogy?--ed.] No, and I'll tell you why. A huge part of the renewal that we need is convincing others and ourselves (by grace) that God absolutely loves us! How many Catholics are "fallen away," simply because they have irrational notions and fears about what we do as Catholics, and why? Actually, it's the perfect analogy. Hockey players don't have an existential crisis every time they commit an infraction. Most of the spectators don't think even the troll on the opposing team who just tripped their guy is at his core irredeemable or inhuman. And yet, no one would argue that infractions should be ignored, despite some variance in the enforcement or application of said rules. Most sinners need to think like hockey players: You are not unworthy to play just because you screw up. 3....

Which means we can think about things other than the Scriptures. Not contradict them, mind you. But the last line here  just annoys me. I don't think anyone confuses a book--an admittedly fallible human product--with divine revelation. I think evangelicals say, "But it's not the Bible" once again to avoid thinking about, or even enjoying, anything. Also, this is why Jesus gave us the Magisterium in the first place: so we know whether something is in accord with what he taught us. We of Christ and Peter's flock do indeed find stupid things to fight about, but our being petty is generally known on all sides. Anyway, Catholics definitely are not averse to visions and things; we were into God doing weird things well before they inspired reactionary conferences from John MacAurthur. [Zing.--ed.] In fact, I'm such an anti-rationalist that I'm more inclined to believe a vision than not believe it, provided it is not obviously contrary to the faith on the face ...

If this is not clear, this is the argument: Here's the argument: (1) All my sins (past, present, and future) were already forgiven. (2) My sanctification will be accomplished immediately and painlessly at the moment of my death. (3) Given the sufficiency of the work of Christ, nothing can make God any more or less pleased with me than He is right now. (4) Heaven is unimaginably better than here. (5) At death I instantly enter heaven. Ergo....  (6) Suicide is better than waiting around to die. Against the charge that no Reformed person experiences life this way, Bryan helpfully adds:  Of course I agree. I'm pointing out a contradiction between that experience of the meaningfulness of our post-salvation temporal life, and a theology that entails post-salvation temporal meaninglessness. That contradiction ought to concern anyone who cares about truth and therefore wishes to eliminate contradictions from his set of beliefs. So my (temporal nihilism) argument ...

Go back to the previous post if you need a refresher, but Dr. Bryan Cross is not, as I understand it, making the syllogism/dilemma to say that any current Reformed person thinks suicide is good; rather, he is asking whether that is a viable conclusion to reach, given the premises. He knows well the conclusion is undesirable, and altogether not good. That's why it's a dilemma. He's definitely saying that Reformed people are inconsistent with their principles, and in this case, that's a very good thing. As Dr. Feingold says, "It is better to be inconsistent with good principles, than to be consistent with bad ones." It seemed to me all over the place that various heretical radical individualists were being very consistent in the application of Sola Scriptura. If a principle well applied (consistently, that is) leads inoxerably and unavoidably to a bad end, most especially for those who do not intend it, that's a good clue it's a bad principle. Overa...

Monergism is a cruel mistress. It's fun to stay at the RCIA! [Terrible. Just terrible.--ed.]

Duh. Right? But she does. I saw her on one of the late-night talk shows last night, and I was curious how she would dress. (Trust me, you can find her in any state of undress on the internet in short order.) But she was dressed very tastefully, actually. And since the guy was going to actually talk with her, and my soul was safe, (so it seemed) I settled in to listen for a spell. She's a very likable person. Believe this or not, but she has an innocence about her that is very real. She talked about going to photo shoots in Germany when she was just a teen. Can you believe that? I certainly believe you can be a chaste model, but isn't it also true that children who are way too young are sexualized and made into objects of lust? Child pornographers aren't aliens; they're us, with the veneer of respectability stripped away. I promise you, I saw past it all. I saw that she's just a little girl. Frankly, she looked like she needed a hug. I'm not sure; I have noth...

Ready? It's a definition, real simple. Marriage is a permanent, unbreakable sexual union between a man and a woman. Anything else is...something else. Any other definitions are clouded with pointless emotional baggage about feelings and the like. The State doesn't care about your feelings, and neither do I. (Ha!)

5. It seemed like a good idea at the time. 4. If we're going to have a War On Drugs, we need a war on Kenny Loggins. Honestly. 3. Tiger Woods does need to relax if he's going to get to 19 majors. He needs real joy, but it won't happen unless he moves toward Jesus Christ. Yeah, I said it. His dad was his Cus D'Amato; unfortunately, his life path is very similar to the other athlete in this parallel. Rick Reilly is right. 2. Yes, I'm rooting for Notre Dame tonight, but not for Catholic reasons, because ND isn't Catholic. Yeah, I said it. It's for Pat. Pat Summitt, for the uninitiated. The greatest basketball coach of all time, who deserves her name mentioned alongside Snarky Geno, not after. Yeah, I said it. 1. The Lady Vols had only 227 losses in Summitt's 38 year tenure. In basketball. It's normal even for national champions in the NCAA to lose 5 games. 6 losses per year; that's it. Just let that sit for a minute. [Does it bother you tha...

Forgive me if this sounds defiant, but you may call me whatever name you wish, owing to my unwillingness to smile and tell you that of course you can re-define marriage, or that homosexual conduct is right and good. I don't care. Because the only thing that matters to me is my conscience. If 99 percent of the public believed it was acceptable to put cute household pets in blenders, (pardon the example) I still wouldn't do it, because it's wrong. But you, homosexuality advocate, seem to think it matters that half or almost half of people don't seem to mind. The morality under which I operate doesn't shift based on what most people say. Most people can't be trusted to find Missouri on a map; I'm not getting life advice from most people. And part of your mistake may be due to the fact that great movements for true justice made use of democratic means. But don't mistake it; we do not make justice by our majoritarian consensus; the best we can say is that w...

This entire Gospel according to John is my favorite. This chapter is what I like to call "the lost chapter," because when I reflect on it, there has been gaps in my memory. I guess even now, John 7 is a little foggy, like London. Anyway, it strikes me that Jesus is both elusive, and powerful. No matter what we expect of him, and try to use him for, he's greater. At once he is saying, as he will say later, "I lay down my life, and take it up again; no one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own accord." But I hear Him also saying, "Who do you say that I am?" It's a challenge, but it surely is the tenderest invitation: "Trust in God; trust also in Me." I don't want to silence Him, to make him go away. Something my eyes of faith see is that he's the furthest thing from ordinary, though he is humble. He has come from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Again, this is why Newbigin's "Proper Confidence" is, with all due respect, a load of mess. "If God didn't say it, it doesn't matter." If humility leads one to say, "I cannot be absolutely certain of doctrine x, as opposed to doctrine y," the only reasonable course is to say, "I ought not assert doctrine x as religious dogma ." In effect, this is what the Protestant world has effectively done by saying, "We're all united in the essentials" without saying what those essentials are: relativized doctrine for the sake of unity, caused by the cognitive dissonance of not being able--in good faith--to come to an agreement concerning the truths of faith under the oppressive regime of Sola Scriptura. In fact, someone like Rachel Held Evans isn't being dishonest in rejecting the theo-political Rightist Industrial Complex, because, as much sympathy as it may still garner over here, there is no mechanism, no God in the machine, ...

The San Antonio Spurs of the NBA have won 19 consecutive games, a team record. They also own the league's best record. They look poised to make another run at a championship. I love the Spurs. They've been underrated the entire time Gregg Popovich has been the head coach. He took over in 1996. The Spurs have managed to win 4 NBA titles without anyone noticing. They are business-like, reserved, fundamentally sound, and all the other things winning teams do, without being despised. "Universally respected" is more like it. You'd like their fans: passionate, loyal, positive, die-hard. In fact, these fans and this team remind me of someone else. The St. Louis Cardinals. Yes, those Cardinals. Despite some recent noise that the Cardinals don't deserve their unofficial moniker as the best fans in baseball, and that their "aw shucks" persona is a pretense, it isn't. It's not for the Spurs, either. They are the quintessential middle-market Everyman...

5. Winter is over, if you want it. 4. Hail. And the Blessed Virgin is not involved. 3. Nothing says spring like a flash flood warning. 2. The National Weather Service now sends obnoxious alerts to your smartphone. Big Government at its finest. 1. It's all fun and games until a tornado takes your house.

I'm surrounded by amazing priests. Really. They know the truth, and they teach it plainly. If you have a good priest in your parish, give thanks. They really aren't so common. Pope Francis is a parish priest who got elected pope. That explains everything he says and does, more readily than reams of analysis you may have read. I'm sure your pastor says inartful things at times; I bet he'd be even more embarrassed by those things if he were--by God's grace--the most important person on Earth (and the most watched) at any given moment. Stew on that for a bit.

I read this today. I like Derek; he writes good stuff every single time. This piece however remains oblivious to the crushing tyranny of Sola Scriptura. Read Jonathan Edwards's final thoughts in this piece. Isn't the "pope of self" exactly what this debate or discussion is entirely about? To whom are you actually submitting when you purport to test everything by the word of God? You might even be clever enough to defer to the community of which you are part. But that only intensifies the question: from whence did their interpretation come? I might be happy as a clam to defer to the doctrinal and juridical decisions of a Presbyterian General Assembly someplace, but unless you are prepared to imbue them with infallibility, you are simply delaying the inevitable conflict between "what the Scriptures say [according to me]" and what the Scriptures say according to them. But if we recall Jason's favorite axiom, "One cannot be both the arbiter of divine...

Look, man. I like girls. Women. You know, that way. It's the way things (usually) are. It's perfectly natural, and good, as far as it goes. And some of us guys really have not taken to singleness terribly well. I'm the worst. Ever. I hate it, in a certain sense. It's hard. And not just in your teens and twenties. But we've got to stop buying the lie that we're not alive without sex and marriage. This culture feeds it to us constantly. But it's crap. Total malarkey. I put "sex" first, because most dudes are thinking it first, even if we've learned to phrase it differently. If you have something good to give, then give it, even if you get nothing in return. This is love. We all fall short. And simply saying it doesn't make a certain emptiness go away. A cross is a cross. But a cross carried in Christ is a wonderful burden. If you need me in the Friend Zone, I'm there. There are worse things, like the Enemy Zone, the I Don't Exi...