Rene Girard, the French literary critic, philosopher and cultural commentator observed that a driving force in all human conflict was what he named "mimetic desire" -a kind of accelerated form of envy in which we don't simply want what the competitor has, we want it simply because they have it. Furthermore, we want everything they have, [...]
I was brought up in a fundamentalist Bible church with teaching heavily influenced by Dispensationalism. This peculiar system of Biblical interpretation understood God's ways of working in the world as being divided into different time periods or "dispensations" The exciting part was that we were living in the "end times". Jesus was going to come back [...]
Some folks are praising Trump's cuts to USAID while others are lamenting the cuts because needy people in the developing world will suffer. My own opinion is that any cutback of big government or any bureaucratic overlord is a good thing. Its a good thing because big government or big bureaucracy wherever it occurs (whether it [...]
One of the Protestant "solas" is sola fide or "salvation by faith alone". This man made, non Biblical doctrine was devised in order to counter what was perceived as Catholics "earning their salvation" by doing good works. I'm the first to admit that it's an easy mistake to make. Much of Catholic devotional practice certainly looks like salvation [...]
We are seeing a record number of Evangelical Protestants enquiring about the Catholic faith here in South Carolina. This morning a young woman from a Baptist background came to see me and said she has questions about Mary and "just didn't get it" about claims that Mary was sinless. So we had a discussion that went [...]
Sola Scriptura is the foundation of the Evangelical Bible Christian religion. The Bible Christian says he believes only what is in the Bible and he eschews "man made traditions." However, when it comes to the Christmas story, the typical Bible Christian actually believes lots of man made traditions, and St Matthew's story of the Magi visiting [...]
Those who are familiar with Biblical scholarship are aware that the majority belief about the St Matthew's story of the Magi visiting Bethlehem is that it is a fanciful legend to show that Jesus was a very special guy and that it was cleverly concocted to show how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. Check out this [...]
We do, in fact, know where Jesus Christ was born. The textual, archeological and historical record is pretty conclusive. The New Testament tells us Jesus was born in the little village of Bethlehem in Judea about six miles from Jerusalem. If you visit Bethlehem today the centerpiece of the town is the ancient Church of the [...]
Before Christmas I met a young man in California who said, with a joyful smile on his face, "I'm a revert. I came back to my Catholic faith last year." "Wonderful" I said, "What brought you back?" "Listening to Jordan Peterson." It is interesting how God uses laymen as evangelists. In the mid twentieth century Lewis, [...]
Most of our mental imagery about Jesus' birth in Bethlehem is grounded in the culture and conditions of medieval Europe. Our creche tableaus are rooted in the first stable scenes set up by St Francis in the thirteenth century and feature a European type stable-barn-cattle shed. The "inn" is a typical European tavern, inn, rustic hotel [...]
