The Quest for the Creed is the new edition of my book Adventures in Orthodoxy. The book contains twenty short chapters on the Apostles' Creed written in a creative "Chestertonian" style. Here is a sample chapter on the phrase, "He will come again to judge the living and the dead…" If there is such a thing as truth [...]
…was crucified, died and was buried … When my nephew was getting ready for college he told me he was expected to write a paper in his first week entitled, “How do I know I exist?” After discussing the matter for some time he concluded that the best thing to do was to punch his professor [...]
Excuse me for being interested in Evangelization, but I'm wondering what, exactly we mean by evangelization or mission in the modern Catholic Church. I keep hearing all sorts of fuzzy talk about the need for "mission" but nobody actually says what that is. It's like we are all supposed to know what that means, but nobody [...]
“Have you heard? Father Longenecker advocates having seances and communicating with the dead!” So it might be assumed from the title of this article: “Communicating with C.S.Lewis.” Am I really huddled over a Ouija board in a dark room muttering incantations to summon up the famous Oxford scholar? No. This article is not about seances [...]
An article in the Daily Telegraph ponders why the number of people attending parish churches in England continues to plummet. While attendance at cathedral worship is up, the number of worshippers in the local churches is in free fall. The Anglicans, of course, are not the only ones. All the churches in the Western developed [...]
I read a smart comment yesterday: "Conservatives want to convert people by arguing with them. Liberals want to convert people by agreeing with them." It's pithy I can see the distinction, but I'm not sure it is merely a "conservative-Liberal" clash. Underlying the tensions within the Catholic Church --which blew up at the recent synod was [...]
Worried about that Synod in Rome? Read This UPDATE: Here is John Allen's summary of the day's happenings at in Rome. He says the synod is turning out like a high drama soap opera...Go here. Whew! has there ever been such a furore amongst the faithful! We've got the clash of cardinals, a [...]
I had a terrific compliment last week. This person didn’t praise me for being extraordinary. She didn’t thank me for being intellectual or handsome or holy or amazing. She thanked me for being normal. We are so often attracted to what is weird. We follow the details of the lives of the stars of athletics and [...]
I have now read what some are calling the "Relativistic Relatio" from the Synod on the family and I'm afraid that I am not impressed. It is not that the language is wishy washy, vague and confusing to the faithful. I've commented on that here and here. It fails to impress not because of it's supposed [...]
The theme song at the moment seems to be "All are safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin." In other words, "All are welcome!" Of course all are welcome in the Catholic Church, but this truth is balanced by the fact that the church has a door. The sheepfold has a gate. The path has [...]