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Saturday October 24, 2009

A.N. Wilson: Goodbye, Church of England

Strong words from A.N. Wilson, the prominent Anglican revert, about Pope Benedict's overture to disaffected Anglican conservatives. Excerpts:

The numbers of practicing Catholics in England is greater than the number of practicing Anglicans. Within a generation, there will probably be more Muslims than practicing Anglicans in the British Isles. Britain will no longer be able to endure the absurdity of the laws relating to the religion of the monarch, the Act of Settlement and Royal Marriages Act, which among other things forbid the sovereign to marry a Catholic. Or the Coronation Oath, which promises to uphold the Protestant religion.

Britain has gone through a truly prodigious change in the last 30 years. It has moved from being a largely white culture with Christianity as its background religion to being a completely secular, multicultural society. The ease and good humor with which this revolution has occurred has made Britain -- and especially London -- an amazingly interesting place to be right now. A genial secularized liberalism is the new norm. ...In such a climate, the Church of England had no chance at all of surviving.

He goes on to explain that the C of E will have to be disestablished, because almost no one believes in it anymore. He goes on.:

The paradox is that a move by a conservative pope to ease the tender consciences of conservative-minded Anglicans will actually be a move toward the complete secularization of Britain, and an acceptance of its new multicultural identity.

It's a bit unclear exactly where Wilson stands on this. It seems that he's a liberal in politics and religion both, and so can't decide whether the pope has done a good or a bad thing. The headline on the NYTimes piece blames the Pope for splitting the Anglican Church. Writers don't choose their headlines, but if indeed that's what Wilson is saying, I think he's wrong. The Church of England was badly split before Pope Benedict offered a hand to traditionalist Anglican Christians. The Pope's move was a bold one, and, I imagine, one seen as hostile by more than a few Anglicans. But Benedict is doing what he can to save what can be saved of Christianity in Britain, and in Europe, or so it seems to me.

Thursday October 22, 2009

Pope Benedict's brilliant strategy

It took the last line of Vatican journalist Sandro Magister's analysis -- excerpted below -- to make the brilliance of Pope Benedict's outreach to Anglicans click with me:

In any case, the communities that are ready to enter the Catholic Church are part of the "traditionalist" wing of the Anglican Communion.

Also traditionalist are the schismatic Lefebvrist communities that Benedict XVI is making increasing efforts to bring into obedience to Rome.

And also attached to the grand tradition are the Orthodox Churches which seem to be having more productive encounters with the current pontiff. From October 16-23 in Cyprus, the second round of dialogue - the first was in Ravenna, in 2007 - is being held between Catholics and Orthodox on the question of papal primacy, in the light of how it was lived during the first millennium.

Today more than ever, with Joseph Ratzinger as pope, the ecumenical journey seems not a pursuit of modernity, but a return to the terrain of tradition.

Of course! Benedict knows that the only Christians who are going to survive intact over the coming decades are those communities firmly rooted in tradition. Liberal Anglicans simply aren't going to make it, and not because they're bad people, but because there's precious little solid ground upon which they can stand as a distinctly Christian community against the strong currents of modernity. Benedict is trying to gather in as many faithful traditionalists as he can. What a blessing it would be if he and the Orthodox patriarchs could come to an understanding that could pave the way for reunion. Personally, I don't see how it could be done, given the wide divergence between Orthodox and Catholic theology since the Great Schism. But with God, all things are possible -- and I think as a purely secular matter (that is, for the sake of establishing a united front for the preservation and growth of the faith against a de-Christianizing world), re-establishing communion between Eastern and Western Christianity would be great for both. Long may this pope -- and the ecumenism of tradition -- live and prosper!

popepatriarch.jpg
(Photo of Pope Benedict and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew by Josh Trevino, via Flickr)

Tuesday October 20, 2009

Anglican-Catholic confusion

News from the Vatican today makes it easier for fed-up Anglicans to convert to Catholicism without leaving everything behind. Excerpt:

A new canonical entity will allow Anglicans "to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony," Cardinal William Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here on Tuesday.

The move creates a formal structure to oversee conversions that had previously been evaluated on a case-by-case basis, including those of married Anglican priests, who are permitted to remain married after they convert to Catholicism. Called Personal Ordinariates, the structure will consist of local Catholic faithful overseen by Anglican prelates who will provide guidance to Anglicans seeking to convert.

Under the new regime, former Anglicans who become Catholic can preserve some liturgical elements of the Anglican Mass.

Here's the oddest part to me:

In a joint statement, the Vatican's archbishop of Westminster and Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, said that the new structure "brings to an end a period of uncertainty for such groups who have nurtured hopes of new ways of embracing unity with the Catholic Church."

The Vatican's decision, they said in a statement of unity between the two churches, was "further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks for all the world like a face-saving compromise for Canterbury, and a way for Rome to deal with what Roman ecumenists see as an unwanted source of diplomatic anxiety. Anyway, I'm glad to see this development, even if it leaves me with more questions over how it will work than answers. Like: how does this differ from the Anglican Use provision? Help me out here, readers.

Thursday October 15, 2009

Godless Europe vs. Godly America

The urbanist Joel Kotkin says Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win says a lot about the priorities of Europe -- they have no leaders of their own, so they're trying to co-opt one of ours they imagine thinks like them -- and little about Obama. Writes Kotkin:

Indeed it's likely that if Obama wanted to run for presidency of the E.U., he could mail it in. Unfortunately for him, he presides over a country that faces a very different future from that of Europe.

This is not to say we cannot learn from Europe in certain areas--namely fuel economy and health care. Republicans dropped the ball on both of these issues, and as a result both our health care system and automobile efficiency pale next to those of the continent.

Still, the reality is that America and Europe are very different, which would necessitate disparate policy approaches. Our growing divergence with Europe spans everything from demographics to economic needs and basic values. In all these areas, the gap is likely to increase over time.

This is why the Obama Administration's Europhilia, now likely to become more pronounced, represents a dangerous temptation.

He goes on to explain why. I thought this was especially interesting:

There are other critical differences. Americans remain more religiously minded. One analyst, David Hart, has spoken of Europe's "metaphysical boredom." Half or more of Europeans never attend church, compared with barely 20% in the U.S.

Among younger Europeans, the loss of traditional Christian identity--with its focus on long-term commitments, sacrifice and responsibility--is virtually complete: According to one Belgian demographer, barely one in 10 young adults in the E.U. maintains any link to an organized religion. In contrast roughly 60% of Americans, according to a Pew Global Attitudes survey, believe religion is "very important," twice the rate of Canadians, Britons, Koreans or Italians and six times the rate of French or Japanese.

Some observers, both in America and abroad, see this spiritualism, particularly among evangelical Christians, as reflecting a kind of social retardation. Yet belief in America is remarkably varied, extending beyond groups that are easily classified as liberal or conservative. In America, a broad "spiritual" focus--dating from the earliest founders and continuing through the transcendentalists and Walt Whitman--persists as a vital force. Even President Obama, whose base tends to be secular, has made much of his religious ties.

I mentioned in an earlier blog post how little I really know about megachurch Christianity, which is huge where I live, North Texas. If you don't live in Dallas or its environs, that's probably your stereotypical idea of what religion is like here. But unlike every other place I've lived, the Protestant mainline churches are still pretty vigorous, and well-attended. The gay MCC church Cathedral of Hope is big. The largest mosque in Texas is here. And so on. Going to religious services is mainstream in the Dallas area in a way I've never seen elsewhere in America. Mind you, Dallas isn't representative of America, but I wonder if, on religious matters, it's true that Dallas is to America as America is to Europe.

Moving along, I think there may be less to this Godly America/Godless Europe thing. If it's true that the religion of America's tomorrow is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, how much better off are we, anyway? Collin Hansen writes:

For the purposes of restraining sin and promoting the common good, MTD is useless. Those previously disposed to ethical behavior need no vapid creed that tells them to be good, nice, and fair. For those who seek selfish gain by any means, MTD offers no compelling alternative. Smith and Denton write, "What we hardly ever heard from teens was that religion is about significantly transforming people into, not what they feel like being, but what they are supposed to be, what God, or their ethical tradition wants them to be."

If orthodox Christianity gives way to MTD, American public life may further degenerate into a feel-good free-for-all. No merely civil religion, especially one shaped by MTD, can long sustain a free republic by itself. A nation committed only to liberty and the pursuit of happiness will be left wondering why life is so unfulfilling.

Strangely, that's the feeling I got about North Texas culture from reading Hank Stuever's "Tinsel," which tracks the celebration of Christmas here. Oh, we're all super-Jesus-y in the Dallas area, but the impression one is left with is that despite the megachurch religiosity regnant in the 'burbs, there's a deep hole people keep trying to fill with stuff, and with the manic pursuit of success.

Question: From a Christian point of view, is it better to live in a society where Christianity is virtually dead, replaced by secular materialism, or in a society where Christianity has been hollowed out by an emotionally satisfying but largely counterfeit version of the faith? Is it better to have nominal Christianity, or no Christianity at all? I don't think this is an easy question to answer. On the one hand, I was deeply impressed by Kierkegaard's "Attack Upon Christendom," in which he denounced the state Lutheran church as antithetical to real Christianity. His point, more or less, was that insofar as institutionalized Christianity leads people to believe that by going through the motions of a social Christianity, they have become true Christians, the experience of Christianity inoculates the individual against the real thing. On the other hand, the thought of raising my children in a place in which the Christian faith, or any religious faith, is largely alien to the community is troubling to me.

Wednesday October 7, 2009

Remember Lepanto

Today is the anniversary of the 1517 1571 battle of Lepanto, in which the European Christian navy clashed with the Ottoman Turkish armada in a fight that would determine whether Western Europe remained Christian, or fell to the Turkish Islamic yoke. It was a tremendous, indeed miraculous, victory for the Christians, who had appealed to the Virgin for her intercession. Michael Novak tells the tale well. And here is a link to Chesterton's famous poem about the battle. Vivat Hispania et Domino Gloria indeed!

Saturday October 3, 2009

Megachurch vs. Orthodox church

It's am amazing thing to be reading the morning NYTimes and see a photo of your friends. But that's what happened today: here's a story about Protestants moving to Orthodoxy, focusing on Holy Cross Antiochan Orthodox Church in suburban Baltimore....

Thursday September 24, 2009

When a strict parent goes too far

Try to ignore The Nation's disgustingly prejudicial headline on this story, titled "The Nightmare of Christianity." Writers almost never write their own headlines, so it's not fair to blame Max Blumenthal for the words The Nation uses to introduce his...

Saturday September 5, 2009

Nicholas Winton and the saints

An extraordinary thing just happened in London. In 1939, Nicholas Winton, a Christian lawyer with Jewish roots, was working in the British Embassy in Prague, and anticipated that the Nazis were going to invade before long. He organized an evacuation...

Monday August 31, 2009

Can we be good without God?

That's the title of a 1989 Atlantic Monthly essay by the political scientist Glenn Tinder -- a piece one of this blog's readers recommended in a combox thread below. Many thanks to the reader -- I'd forgotten about this piece,...

Tuesday August 25, 2009

Fake Christian health care town halls

I just received an e-mail from the Family Research Council, offering a "kit" to help churches set up "health care townhalls." The mailer invites one to download the FRC's kit for staging a town hall. Excerpt from the cover letter:...

Monday August 24, 2009

Moralistic Therapeutic Jesuit

Oh, vom: St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, called this power we all have, the power to help people. Spirituality is something we grow with without even giving it a name, something that liberates our energies in life...

Sunday August 23, 2009

What does "monogamy" mean to gays?

The Lutherans (ELCA) have now okayed gay clergy who are in "committed" relationships, and endorsed "chaste, monogamous and lifelong" same-sex relationships. But as Terry Mattingly observes, there has been no real public discussion about just what "monogamy" means when it...

Wednesday August 19, 2009

"Christ-follower" vs. Christian

Take a look at this Mac vs. PC ad campaign from a Christian church: I get what they're trying to do, and I'm mildly sympathetic. Bumper-sticker Christianity drives me crazy too. But "Christian No More" as the name of this...

Friday August 14, 2009

Christian convert flees honor killing

ABC News reports on a teenage American girl who secretly converted to Christianity, and has fled her Muslim family's home to escape the prospect that she'll be murdered. Excerpt: Lorenz said Rifqa, a native of Sri Lanka, had secretly converted...

Tuesday August 11, 2009

Evangelicals should push early marriage

Sociologist Mark Regnerus, writing in Christianity Today, says the overwhelming majority of young conservative Evangelical adults are having some sort of sex: Virginity pledges. Chastity balls. Courtship. Side hugs. Guarding your heart. Evangelical discourse on sex is more conservative than...

Tuesday July 28, 2009

Burchill vs. Dawkins' atheist summer camp

How'd I miss this one? Richard Dawkins has given money toward the running of a summer camp for the young and godless. A letter-writer to the Times comments: Maybe Dawkins's atheist kiddy camps can educate these already overindulged middle-class children...

Wednesday July 22, 2009

The Sarum Rite

Speaking of Salisbury, have you ever heard of the Sarum Rite, a medieval liturgy developed for local use by the Diocese of Salisbury ("Sarum" to the Romans)? It was suppressed after the English Reformation, though celebrated privately by recusant Roman...

Monday July 20, 2009

Anger and Christian virtue

The other day I spoke on the phone to an Orthodox monk in connection with my Templeton project. We got to talking about martial arts, and he said he didn't think it was appropriate for Orthodox Christians to engage in...

Wednesday July 15, 2009

Fall and fallout (Erin)

Ever since Rod's post about Evangelical culture earlier this week, I've been pondering something. I'm going to be thinking out loud, here; hope you'll bear with me. Anyone who looks objectively at the state of Christianity today, particularly in America,...

Wednesday July 15, 2009

Wolf in shepherd's clothing (Erin)

Don't know if anyone's been following the trial of evangelist Tony Alamo; truly stomach churning stuff there: Alamo, 74, is accused of taking five girls across state lines for sex between 1994 and 2005. The woman did not testify about...

Wednesday July 15, 2009

No Christians need apply (Erin)

Marty Peretz at his TNR blog has noticed something strange about the reaction to President Obama's choice to lead the NIH: I don't know who's behind President Obama's appointment of Dr. Francis S. Collins as head of the National Institutes...

Tuesday July 14, 2009

Freedom, obedience and religious life

Here's an important blog post by Steve Skojec, a Catholic friend of this blog who posts from time to time, about what he learned from his traumatizing time in the Legionaries of Christ. It's about how personal autonomy yielded to...

Monday July 6, 2009

Was Neda a Christian?

Terry Mattingly has some shocking information (if true) about the icon of the ongoing Iranian unrest....

Friday June 19, 2009

Priest by day, drag queen by night

It seems that Ohio priest Father Anthony Capretta moonlights as a disco drag queen called Big Mama Capretta. Why anyone would think that this nitwit could offer serious spiritual direction is beyond me, but apparently some confused people do (check...

Tuesday June 16, 2009

Sex and poverty, morals and ministry

I had a couple of conversations in Cambridge that illuminated the challenges of being a Christian minister in this rapidly changing world. In the first, I spoke with an older Anglican priest (they're thick on the ground in Cambridge) who...

Monday June 15, 2009

Prayer and modern living (Erin)

Rod is very kindly letting me put up a post or so for the next couple of days; I'm glad, because I really enjoy getting to do this, and am frankly astonished by how fast these past two weeks have...

Tuesday June 9, 2009

St. Etheldreda

She was an early medieval East Anglian princess who became an abbess only after an extraordinary series of trials. See here. What an extraordinary story -- and she is a saint for the Orthodox too, of course. In fact, the...

Friday June 5, 2009

Leaning on the everlasting arms (Erin)

Somehow, I don't think that this is the right message to be sending in church: LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- A Kentucky pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second...

Tuesday June 2, 2009

Lewis Episcopalians? (Erin)

In the thread about Tiller's church, a commenter wrote: Erin, please consider opening a new discussion thread on this topic: Back in the Seventies and Eighties, lots of people from an evangelical background, their faith much enriched by the writings...

Saturday May 30, 2009

An English church

Wandering around Cambridge this glorious afternoon, I stopped in at the tiny church of St. Edward King and Martyr, which was, they say, where the first sermon advocating the English Reformation was preached. From the church's website: The church played...

Tuesday May 26, 2009

The American Patriot's Bible

Hey nationalistic idolaters, there's now a Bible just for you. Excerpt from a critical Christianity Today review: Yet, the selective retelling of American history found in the Patriot's Bible is not what concerns me the most. What disturbs me more...

Thursday April 30, 2009

Christians and torture shocker

Here's a shocker: a new Pew poll finds that Christians support torture more than non-believers do. What's more, Evangelicals are more pro-torture than white mainline Protestants and white non-Hispanic Catholics -- but that Catholics and Evangelicals are more pro-torture than...

Thursday April 23, 2009

Jesus as Moralistic Therapeutic Deity

Andrew Sullivan reveals his next move: He says his next battle is to "turn Christianity against the fundamentalists". For him, "their certainty is the real blasphemy; their desire to control the lives of others the real heresy; their simple depiction...

Saturday April 18, 2009

Hey Truth, we're just not that into you

I was having lunch this week with a Christian friend, and we were discussing why the public Christian witness on critical issues is so weak and vacillating, and why the church, broadly speaking, is so accomodationist to this culture, so...

Friday April 17, 2009

Matt Baglio, exorcist hunter

Matt Baglio is a young American journalist living in Rome. When he heard of a California priest who had been sent to Rome by his bishop to learn how to be an exorcist, Baglio became intrigued. Why does the Catholic...

Wednesday April 15, 2009

Goodbye, good Bishop Nazir-Ali

The Anglican bishop Michael Nazir-Ali has guts, and more than that, he's a man of faith. That he felt he could serve more effectively by resigning his bishopric (he's going to work for the sake of the persecuted church) says...

Tuesday April 14, 2009

A.N. Wilson: I am once again a Christian

Last I heard from the British academic and critic A.N. Wilson, he had lost his Christian faith. Deo gratias, he has recovered it, and wrote a powerful Easter weekend testimonial to the necessity to be boldly Christian amid the sneering...

Monday April 13, 2009

Culture vs. true religion

Via Mark Shea, this fragment of an essay by a Jewish author lamenting the loss of Jews to intermarriage. The author began by citing a wedding, in a Catholic Church, of a young Jewish woman to a Catholic man: American...

Sunday April 12, 2009

Easter open thread

What was Easter like for you today at your church, and in your family? Open thread....

Friday April 10, 2009

"Crucify him!" I said

One of the most dramatic moments of any Catholic Christian's year is that moment in the Good Friday liturgy when, in the reading of the Passion, the entire congregation calls out, "Crucify him!" [Update: Reading this magnificent first chapter from...

Friday April 10, 2009

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism right for America?

Shocked, shocked to read that Damon Linker thinks that Christianity's decay into a wet-toilet-paper shell of itself called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is good for the country. Excerpt: Theologically speaking, this watered-down, anemic, insipid form of Judeo-Christianity is pretty repulsive....

Friday April 10, 2009

Shroud of Turin: Best relic ever

Jeffrey Hart says evidence for the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin as the burial cloth of the resurrected Christ is stronger than you might think. I've always found this point to be the most amazing thing about the Shroud:...

Thursday April 9, 2009

With Islam, 'respect' is a one-way street

I get so very tired of global Muslim whining about how they are disrespected. In some cases, I suppose, it's true, but I'd take these complaints a lot more seriously if Islamic countries busied themselves treating Christians and members of...

Wednesday April 8, 2009

Christians and the Red Cross torture report

Mark Danner's must-read piece about the damning meaning of the Red Cross torture report. Excerpt: When it comes to torture, it is not what we did but what we are doing. It is not what happened but what is happening...

Tuesday April 7, 2009

My Howard Ahmanson moment

For the second time in a week, I've had what I'll call a "Howard Ahmanson Moment" -- the feeling that I, as a cultural and religious conservative, have more in common with illegal aliens than with many of my own...

Sunday April 5, 2009

Knights Templar hid Shroud of Turin

So says the Vatican. Fascinating. I love anything about the Shroud, which I believe is real. I also love how at this time of year, you can hardly turn on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel without seeing a...

Sunday April 5, 2009

Meacham on post-Christian America

In the new issue of Newsweek, Jon Meacham explores the decline of Christianity as the animating spirit of American life. Excerpts: Let's be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly...

Friday April 3, 2009

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is eating the young

Got this just now from a reader who teaches at a Catholic college: I'm writing just to give a BIG "Amen" to your post on the challenges religious-social conservatives face in the future. I teach excerpts on MTD from Christian...

Thursday April 2, 2009

John Paul's new springtime

Amy Welborn notes that four years ago today (April 2), John Paul II died. She quotes a First Things essay by Fr. Thomas D. Williams, on why JP2's faith that we were entering a "new springtime" could not be seen...

Tuesday March 17, 2009

The real St. Patrick

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Aside from all the Irish blarney, the real-life story of St. Patrick is an incredible tale. Born into Roman Britain, he was captured at 16 by raiders, and taken to Ireland, where he was sold into...

Wednesday March 11, 2009

Meg's Attack Upon Christendom

In the "Collapse of Evangelicalism" below, a commenter named Meg, who identifies herself as a secular liberal, posted the following lengthy indictment of the Christianity in which she was raised. I don't agree with all of her points, for reasons...

Tuesday March 10, 2009

A coming Evangelical collapse?

Writing in today's Christian Science Monitor, Michael Spencer, an Evangelical, foresees an imminent collapse of Evangelical Christianity in the US. Excerpt: We are on the verge - within 10 years - of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown...

Thursday March 5, 2009

Are you a Christian hipster?

A friend passed along a link to this post, laying out a set of criteria for Christian hipsterness. Among them: Christian hipsters like music, movies, and books that are well-respected by their respective artistic communities--Christian or not. They love books...

Tuesday March 3, 2009

Diversity -- or else!

A reader writes to say that people on this blog often sneer at claims that Christians are being oppressed or discriminated against, but he brings to my attention a story from the UK that is undeniably an attempt to marginalize...

Tuesday March 3, 2009

Surprise! The Bible is, like, interesting

I must confess that I am a bad Bible reader. Really lousy. I rarely read it, and rarely have read it. This is inexplicable and indefensible from a Christian point of view. But that's where I am. As Slate editor...

Thursday February 26, 2009

Christian scientists speak out

In context of a discussion about growing Christian concern over climate change and environmental degredation, Mark I. Pinsky writes in the Harvard Divinity Journal about Christian scientists (that is, scientists who are Christians, not Mrs. Eddy's disciples) who are inspired...

Saturday February 21, 2009

No Christian philosophers need apply

Via Frank Beckwith, disturbing news about a petition academic philosophers are circulating among the American Philosophical Association membership. From the petition: Many colleges and universities require faculty, students, and staff to follow certain 'ethical' standards which prohibit engaging in homosexual...

Friday January 23, 2009

Sportsmanship and redemption

The other night in Dallas, a girls basketball team from the Covenant School stomped a mudhole in their opponents from Dallas Academy, beating them 100-0. The courage of the Dallas Academy girls in the face of their utter humiliation made...

Tuesday January 13, 2009

Tim Tebow is not the messiah

Gregg Doyel, who writes a sports column for CBS Online, says that Florida QB Tim Tebow might be the greatest college football player ever, but that Tebow's Christianity is not part of his greatness. Excerpt: This one is really going...

Tuesday January 6, 2009

Against spendthrift Christians

John Zmirak says credit-crazy Christians need to repent. Excerpt: We're facing a major meltdown of the economy after eight years of governance by the president whose base was--to put things baldly--orthodox Christians. Pro-lifers, patriots, hard-working types who aren't sitting by...

Monday December 29, 2008

Is heresy better than schism?

On his TNR blog, Damon Linker flags the schism withing the Episcopal Church as the most important and worrying religious development of the past year. Here's an excerpt: With 100,000 members, the schismatic Anglican denomination is so far quite small,...

Saturday December 27, 2008

Africa needs Jesus. America does too.

[Sorry for no posting -- Beliefnet's blogs have been down for two days. You probably noticed if you tried to post a comment. Should be fixed now.] Look at this extraordinary article from a Times of London columnist: But travelling...

Sunday December 14, 2008

A nice place to visit? (Erin)

I'm so glad the Drehers have made it back safely--there's no misery quite like being sick while on vacation. Rod has graciously invited me to continue posting today, and as there are one or two little things of interest out...

Friday December 5, 2008

The spirit of silence (Erin)

Erin Manning here; starting sometime this weekend, I'll be taking the helm of the good ship Crunchy Con so our captain can enjoy some still waters for a change, in conjunction with what he wrote about today, below. One of...

Thursday November 20, 2008

Kill a Christian, earn $250

In India, Hindu extremists are paying people to bounty-hunt Christians. Excerpt: Extremist Hindu groups offered money, food and alcohol to mobs to kill Christians and destroy their homes, according to Christian aid workers in the eastern state of Orissa. The...

Tuesday September 30, 2008

Alinsky: "Bishop or priest? Choose."

I decided over the weekend to pick up and read Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," to gain more insight into Barack Obama's mindset and methods. Obama trained under and worked for followers of the Chicago community organizer, who died in...

Saturday September 27, 2008

Church, power and authority

In the Bishop Soto thread below, a discussion has broken out about the relationship between the personal credibility of a church leader (in this case, a bishop) and the authority they exercise by virtue of their office. It's a complex...

Saturday August 30, 2008

What kind of Christian is Sarah Palin?

It's hard to say. People say she's an Evangelical, but what does that mean, really? Is she a Pentecostal? A Bible churcher? Christianity Today reports that she was baptized a Catholic as an infant, but her parents raised her in...

Saturday August 30, 2008

Anti-Christian pogroms in Orissa

In India's Orissa state, Hindu mobs have been burning churches, gang-raping nuns and murdering Christians in recent days. Here's a blog that's compiling news about the pogroms, the details of which are utterly horrifying. For example, Catholic News Service reports:...

Thursday August 7, 2008

Solzhenitsyn: Apocalypse now

From Solzhenitsyn's 1983 Templeton Lecture, reprinted in "The Solzhenitsyn Reader", this protest against the metaphysical calamity modernity has brought to both the communist East and the capitalist West: Today's world has reached a stage that, if it had been described...

Thursday August 7, 2008

Solzhenitsyn: "The Soul & Barbed Wire"

Last night I was looking on the bookshelf in my dining room for something to read at bedtime, and saw a blank spine in a far corner. I pulled it out, and it was a galley copy of "The Soul...

Wednesday August 6, 2008

Ecumenism in our time

Slightly hysterical Muslim woman gets up in Christian street preacher's face, grabs at his Bible. Christian street preacher calls Muhammad a pedophile. Muslim woman slugs him hard. It's all here on video (the punch is at the 1:30 point). What...

Friday August 1, 2008

What do converts want?

I've listened twice now to a great lecture by Terry Mattingly, delivered a couple of years ago to an audience of Orthodox priests and laymen. It's title: "So What Do the Converts Want?" It's about and meant for Orthodox believers,...

Monday July 21, 2008

Saints and signs

Last week for some reason I decided to pull a biography of St. Silouan the Athonite off the pile of books by my bed, where it had been sitting since November, and start reading it. It's really captivating. And since...

Friday July 18, 2008

Put down that book and pray

The Orthodox priest Fr. Stephen Freeman's blog really is a wonder. If you want to get an idea of the blog's spirit, consider this recent excerpt: Thus, most of my writing is aimed towards the goal of our salvation in...

Friday July 18, 2008

Humility, mercy and St. Silouan

A passage from the biography of St. Silouan the Athonite, a 20th century monk, by Archimandrite Sophrony: The Staretz [Holy Elder] used to say, "The Holy Spirit is love, and He gives the soul strength to love her enemies. And...

Friday July 18, 2008

The last word on P.Z. Myers

Did you know that according to Nature magazine, Myers' blog is the No. 1 science blog out there? He's not the fringe figure one might think (or wish). Anyway, Mark Shea has, to my mind, the last word on that...

Monday July 14, 2008

P.Z. Myers hates Christians exclusively

Or so it would seem, per this discovery by Frank Beckwith, who found that Myers criticized the Danish newspapers for publishing the Muhammad cartoons. Here's part of what Myers said at the time: Muslims represent a poor and oppressed underclass,...

Sunday June 22, 2008

[Erin] The habit of worship

In a little while, my family and I will be attending Mass. As Catholics we take the obligation to go to Mass on Sundays and on Holy Days of Obligation very seriously. Catholics are required to go to Mass on...

Friday June 20, 2008

[Erin] Schism, or no?

Time is asking the question: are the Anglicans about to split? The schism long forecast for the Anglican Communion over the church's liberal stand on homosexuality may be getting closer. A document released by a group of conservative churchmen called...

Thursday June 12, 2008

Bishop Bennison on trial

An extraordinary, and welcome, event underway today in Philadelphia: the Episcopal Church is conducting a canonical trial of Charles Bennison, the Bishop of Pennsylvania, over his role in covering up sexual abuse. Excerpt from a Phila Daily News column: Bennison...

Sunday May 18, 2008

Narcissism and the church

My friend N., the former Catholic priest, and I have continued our conversation via e-mail. From a letter I received from him today, blogged here with his permission: I've been giving this some thought all weekend. Clericalism is not the...

Sunday May 11, 2008

Gledhill: "Soul of Britain is dying"

Ruth Gledhill, the religion writer for the Times of London, says "it feels like the soul of Britain is dying." What's she talking about? A new report projecting further astonishing collapse in British Christianity. An excerpt from Gledhill's article: Church...

Wednesday April 23, 2008

The good that priests do

Tonight I went to the Holy Unction service at the cathedral, and to confession. After my confession, as I stood on the other side of the church listening to the chanting and praying, and watched Father John receive more of...

Wednesday April 23, 2008

Religious freedom in Russia

The good news is that Russian Orthodoxy is rising in the formerly atheist dystopia of Russia. The bad news? The Russian government is persecuting Protestants and Catholics in an effort to protect Orthodoxy. This is wrong. Look, I understand why...

Sunday April 20, 2008

UK: Religion is a modern evil

A new British poll finds that the people of the UK identify religion as one of the worst social evils of our time. This made some Brits happy: Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said he was “extremely...

Monday April 14, 2008

Same church, different worlds

I've been at the hospital most of the day with Matthew as he underwent a lengthy diagnostic procedure. No fun for anybody. The boy was well taken care of by a nice nurse who, as it turns out, is a...

Sunday April 6, 2008

The amazing Mennonites. Again.

Once again, Mennonites in the news exhibiting the virtue of forgiveness at a level that passes all human understanding. Excerpt: CHEWELAH, Wash. — For more than a quarter mile, Clifford Helm veered in his pickup truck through a grassy median...

Tuesday April 1, 2008

The tragically hip vicar

Mark Shea says there's nothing more painful than a tragically hip Anglican. This is the poor boob he's talking about: An Anglican vicar has tried to make Bible stories more “accessible” to modern readers by rewriting them to portray Goliath...

Saturday March 29, 2008

Miss Emily Litellavskaya

From the Miss Emily Litella File, remember the reports that Mikhail Gorbachev has embraced Christianity? Gorby says, "Never mind."...

Friday March 28, 2008

The amazing Fr. Zakaria Botros

Check out this NRO piece on Zakaria Botros, a Coptic priest who's making big waves in the Arab Muslim world with his television broadcasts on Arabic-language television. Excerpts: A third reason for Botros’s success is that his polemical technique has...

Tuesday March 25, 2008

Church of Jesus Without Jesus

Quick, observe these daft divines before they fade away five minutes from now: That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today – Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto's West Hill United Church as...

Tuesday March 25, 2008

Allam and Benedict: two mustard seeds

Remember when Ronald Reagan came on the national scene, he was thought to be a dangerous man because he didn't believe in detente with the Soviets, but actually thought his vision was true, the Soviet vision false, and ought to...

Saturday March 22, 2008

Christ is Risen (in the West)!

Easter blessings to all Western Christians on this feast of feasts! Tonight brings wonderful news from Rome. Let all Christians welcome our new brother in Christ, Magdi Allam: VATICAN CITY - Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned...

Saturday March 22, 2008

"...a circle is closing..."

From "The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann, 1973-1983": Holy [Good] Friday, April 8, 1977 Everything as it should be -- as always -- on these high days. In the best moments, one is painfully pierced by what is remembered and...

Thursday March 20, 2008

Triduum open thread

Today is Holy Thursday. We are at the Easter Triduum for Christians of the West. I wish you all a blessed one, and would like to offer this post as an open thread for reflections on the meaning of these...

Wednesday March 19, 2008

Bible Girl on Jeremiah Wright

This is one I've been waiting for: Bible Girl's take on the Jeremiah Wright controversy. Bible Girl is Julie Lyons, until recently the editor of the Dallas Observer, and a Pentecostal who has for years worshiped in a black church....

Wednesday March 19, 2008

Mikhail Gorbachev: Christian

Wow. And Reagan believed during negotiations with him that Gorbachev was a "closet believer." According to this report, it sounds like he's a Catholic, though baptized Orthodox: Mr Gorbachev's parents reportedly kept Orthodox icons hidden behind pictures of Stalin and...

Saturday February 23, 2008

Apostolicity in our time

A message to the people of God from Relevant Church of Ybor City, Fla.: People are not having enough sex. An epidemic of breakups prove the needs that lead to a great sex life are being overlooked. Dirty dishes, frumpy...

Friday February 8, 2008

John The Anonymous Christian

Stop whatever you're doing and go right now to read Michael Brendan Dougherty's story of John the Anonymous Christian. (What is an Anonymous Christian? Glad you asked.) When you've finished reading Mike's amazing piece, reflect on it in light of...

Friday February 8, 2008

To pass on the faith, live it

Along the lines of the Buckaroo Banzai Christians post, here's something Catholic blogger Amy Welborn said in a recent interview that bears repeating: The problem is that when you look at Catholic history, the faith has never been passed on...

Wednesday February 6, 2008

The Gay Priest problem

Well, it is Ash Wednesday, so let's talk about something difficult, something that requires penitential self-examination. Father Neuhaus calls "The Faithful Departed" by Phil Lawler "the best book-length treatment of the [Catholic] sex abuse crisis, its origins and larger implications,...

Sunday February 3, 2008

Nietzsche on Christianity

I commend to those who despise Christianity and think it a detriment to a culture based on its moral precepts this passage from leading Nietzsche scholar Rudiger Safranski's "Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography" (2002): Nature produces the weak and the strong,...

Tuesday January 29, 2008

The new (Evangelical) monastics

The Los Angeles Times profiles young Evangelicals who, having grown weary of soft, suburbanized Christianity, have chosen to live monastically, in community with each other. Here's how the story begins: BILLINGS, MONT. -- In a peeling house on South 32nd...

Thursday January 24, 2008

Baptists? Who, us?

Here's an interesting question submitted to an advice column in a newsmagazine for Texas Baptists: Our church is talking seriously about sponsoring a new congregation in our area. But we seem headed for a meltdown. Several folks insist “Baptist” must...

Tuesday January 15, 2008

Obama's liberal Christianity

I'm getting the revolting e-mails in which Barack Obama is smeared as a Muslim (not, I hasten to point out, that being a Muslim is something to be ashamed of, but his alleged secret Muslim identity is used to smear...

Thursday December 27, 2007

See how they love each other

O little town of Bethlehem/How your priests beat the crap out of each other in church... Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church...

Thursday December 20, 2007

Alas, poor Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury assures BBC listeners and Ricky Gervais that a lot of the Nativity story is more or less myth. Well, Rowan, good to know. To be fair, if you read the entire transcript of the interview, the...

Monday November 19, 2007

[Erin] A line in the sand

At their convention this past weekend, the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth took the first steps necessary to allow them to withdraw from the national church, in a split motivated in part by the ECUSA's teachings on the morality of...

Monday November 5, 2007

Working the vertex for Regnum Christi

I hadn't realized that "Bella" is not just being promoted by the orthodox Catholic organization Regnum Christi (the lay arm of the Legion of Christ, which has had its share of problems re: accusations of cult-like behavior, as well as...

Monday October 22, 2007

Ecclesiastical follies

You know, all the Catholic Church needs to do to take care of its child molestation problem is get married priests and women priests, like the Anglicans. And liberalize its theology, like the Anglicans. Oh, wait... Meanwhile, the financial scandal...

Thursday October 11, 2007

St. Charles Lwanga and African homosexuality

Philip Jenkins has a great piece up on The New Republic site explaining why homosexuality is such a big deal for African Christians, especially Nigeria's Anglicans. I knew that it was vitally important in Christianity's rivalry with Islam, as Jenkins...

Friday September 28, 2007

Pentecostalism and the Global South

I spent an hour late yesterday interviewing Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the Anglican Archbishop of Kaduna state in Nigeria. He's in Dallas for the next few days preaching and teaching. We talked about all kinds of things, in particular the Anglican split...

Wednesday September 26, 2007

Feminized Christianity, anyone?

We've been talking about whether or not western Christianity has become or is becoming feminized. Along those lines, BabyBlue, an Episcopalian attending TEC's bishops' meeting in New Orleans, picked up one of the new "official" hymns being trilled by the...

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About Crunchy Con

Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.

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