In Essentials
For decades I have heard people use the expression: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” I think a common reply to this is that we can never agree as to what is essential and what is non-essential. In fact, , so we debate and debate the particular question at hand. However, [...]
Citizens or Fans
The political climate is such that no one who wants broad-based national appeal can possibly be forthright and specific. As soon as one does, he or she looses too much appeal from too many. This is not a criticism of one side or the other, except to the extent that, as Yeats wrote: “The best [...]
Where Are Their Civil Rights?
January 1973
Not a Christian Nation
I support the National Day of Prayer. It’s not unconstitutional; there is no imposition; one can pray to Whomever, whomever (only my God gets the capital–that’s how it works on my blog), or whatever they want, or to no one or nothing. The recent court decision declaring that it violates the Constitution is nonsense, and [...]
Who Would Jesus Deport
Today, the first of May, there were protest all over the country against Arizona’s new immigration law. One protestor was carrying a sign “Who Would Jesus Deport?” What if it said “Who Would Jesus Marry?” (I mean by this not get married to but whose marriage would he preside over.) Can you image the outrage? [...]
Questions: Adam and Eve
In his song “Could it Be,” Michael Card sings: ”Could it be that questions tell us more than answers ever do?” I often think so. So I am starting a new category as a place marker for me to pose questions that I think can lead to interesting reflections. First up: What if Adam had told [...]
Steyn on Kennedy (or Why I Tend to Be Non-Progressive)
In general I would like to change the overall tenor of my blog away from the more polemical, reflections on the news-of-the-day, culture war sort, but something Mark Steyn recently wrote about Edward Kennedy summed up a lot of things for me. Steyn is acerbic, clever and hilarious, the closest living writer we have to [...]
Obects of History
Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked On-Line, wrote what is probably the most perceptive essay on the Obama phenomena that I have seen: So there was a dual historic element to the inauguration: there was the real history of it, but more powerfully still there was the projection of a yearning for history on to it, [...]