The religious life requires faith, but what is 'faith'? One of the greatest misunderstandings among believers and non-believers alike is the concept of 'faith'. Let's rattle through the misconceptions before we try to say what 'faith' really is. First is the idea that faith is 'blind'. The non believers often blame believers for believing something which [...]
I've got this exciting new theory I want to try out on you. I've just thought of it myself, and maybe it's old hat and been around forever, but I'm only a convert, so if it is the classical spiritual teaching of some great monastic teacher or spiritual director and I've never heard of it, then [...]
When I was a child I was taught the Sunday School song, "Trust and Obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to Trust and Obey." So this morning at Mass this song comes back to me in the reading of the gospel. It is the story of the healing of the [...]
After witnessing the Democratic and Republican conventions, and watching the polls for Romney and Obama it seems increasingly clear to me that our country is fundamentally divided. The polls have the two candidates running neck and neck. It seems that exactly half the citizens are in favor of one and the other half of the population [...]
Is Liberalism dead? Ross Douthat comments here on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the decline of liberal Christianity. It's a speculative piece which highlights the chasm that now exists within all forms of liberal Christianity and historic Christianity. I've written on the subject a few months ago here. This divide yawns not only within [...]
One of the positive things about discussions with atheists is that most of them insist on rational discussion. They say they want to discuss things reasonably. It's disappointing therefore when the conversations sometimes end up with atheists descending to profanity, emotional rants, ad hominem attacks and blasphemy. Nevermind. Some Catholics are fond of irrational rants too. [...]
In seminary we had to study modern Biblical scholarship, and one of my great blessings was that at Bob Jones I learned to be skeptical of the fundamentalists, but at Oxford I learned to be skeptical of the modernists. Both groups seemed to me to be like two madmen strapped back to back. Both the fundamentalists [...]
An interesting story has popped up about miracles taking place in India. I've heard church workers report that the growth of the church in Africa is also attributed to a rush of miracles happening there. So why no miracles here? First of all, to see a miracle you have to believe in miracles. C.S.Lewis said he [...]
Anthony Esolen has a good moan here about some of the hymns he has to endure at Mass. Anthony is an English professor and noted translator of Dante. So he knows something about poetry. Why oh why are such awful hymns allowed in the Catholic Church? I've mused on the bad music myself in this post, [...]
Would a good God send anyone to hell? Some folks tootle on about the Christian God being some sort of "invisible moral enforcer". He's the big school monitor in the sky; the eternal policeman. They reject that sort of God, and that's okay because that's not really the God of the Catholic faith anyway. We believe [...]