I'm sorry, but I can't jump on the "Defend Kim Davis" bandwagon. I respect the woman's faith and courage immensely, but I have explained here why I think her uncompromising stance is not actually the right decision at this time. In this article I compared her case to that of St Thomas More. If Ms Davis had been a [...]
This week's article at The Imaginative Conservative is an abridged version of a chapter from my book The Romance of Religion This is why the hobbit (and Alice’s rabbit) lived down a hole. The hole was the entrance to the underworld. This is why Dante went through a dark wood and found a hole down into [...]
Let me say right up front that I hope hell is not eternal. I hope God finds a way to offer his forgiveness even to those who are in hell. In fact, I'll jump on the speculative theological bandwagon and propose that God's mercy--since it is everlasting--will extend even to hell. I know I am treading [...]
Evangelist Billy Graham My post for Aleteia this week compares the preaching method and message of Billy Graham and Pope Francis. I sometimes think the Pope is more Evangelical than Billy Graham. Like most Evangelicals of his generation, Graham was famous for inviting people to turn from their sins and have a “personal [...]
As Kentucky clerk Kim Davis does jail time I have been thinking all day about her case compared to St Thomas More. What should a Christian do when their conscience clashes with the law of the land? When they actually work for the government the situation is different than that of an ordinary citizen. Thomas More [...]
I finally got the chance to watch Little Boy --the family film that came out in theaters last summer and is now released on DVD When his dad enlists in the army and disappears to fight the Japanese, seven year old Pepper Busbee's world is shattered. Wanting to get his Dad back, he learns that magic won't work, so [...]
Wow! Go here to see the beautiful re-design of the Aleteia website. Aleteia is a growing international Catholic website. It combines news, comment and Catholic insights on the news from around the world. I'm honored to be one of their regular contributors and look forward to working with my former colleague from Patheos--Elizabeth Scalia--as she takes [...]
In Catholic theology "invincible ignorance" is simply the lack of knowledge about the faith for which a person is not held responsible. So, for example, primitive people who have never heard the gospel, infant who have yet to learn, and people who because of mental illness or disability cannot learn the faith. The term has entered [...]
Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity My article this week at Imaginative Conservative is a discussion of morality in movies--using two examples of film noir to show how good and evil can be treated in filmic storytelling. The smart thing about film noir is that we identify with an ordinary good character who is drawn [...]
Really? Yesterday's post on universalism deserves a follow up. If there is such a place as hell, and we are assured by the gospel and by common sense that there is, who will go there and why? Does God send people to suffer for all eternity in hell? Why would he do that if [...]