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Miscellaneous Advent notes
Sunday, as we all know, was the first Sunday in Advent, a season of penitence and hope as we await the coming of the Lord. This has dual connotations in that the coming of the Lord can refer both to the Nativity and to the Second Coming, which is why you get apocalyptic texts like…
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The Zwingli-Clinton axis
I was reading an article from a back issue of the Lutheran journal dialog and came across this amusing line: “This something could on that basis be regarded, alongside with the scriptures, as also normative as a sign of unity, even if not recognized by all the Lutheran Confessions, provided that ‘is’ does not really…
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Barack Obama: Where’s the beef?
Another link from Gaius: David Sirota critiques the hype about a 2008 Barack Obama presidential run. Coming from the progressive Left, Sirota points out that Obama has essentially no record of willingness to take the lead on any controversial issue. Sirota doesn’t blame Obama himself as much as the people for whom he’s become a…
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Greeley against the draft
Great response by Fr. Andrew Greeley to Rep. Charlie Rangel and the other “authoritarian liberals” who want to use conscription to provide a check on executive warmaking and/or to promote social and racial equality and/or as a moral tonic. (via Conservative Green) The obvious point is that the draft has historically not acted as a…
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The meanings of limited government
This post at the anabaptist blog Levellers does a good job encapsulating where I tend to differ from contemporary American conservatism. I had wanted to write a post for a while about the different meanings given to “limited government” by people whose primary concerns are, say, concentrated executive power versus those who are most worried…
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Animals, nature, and Christian ethics
Stephen Webb, theologian and author of On God and Dogs and Good Eating, has an intriguing article at The Other Journal called “Theology from the Pet Side Up: A Christian Agenda for NOT Saving the World” which combines two of my pet interests (pardon the pun), Christian concern for animals and the theology of nature.…
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Evangelism in the mainline and the loss of transcendence
Chris at Even the Devils Believe has a good post on birth rates and evangelism in mainline Protestantism, jumping off from the recent comments from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori about how Episcopalians aren’t incresing their numbers due to the low birth rates among “better-educated” people who care about preserving the earth. Leaving…
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PETA priorities
I’m at least somewhat sympathetic to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals; if nothing else, they raise issues that many, many people would just as soon never think about. But this case strikes me as a misallocation of what one can only assume are limited resources. Apparently they were chastising a pastor in Alaska…
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A simple order of prayer to carry with you
Recently I’ve been using David Adam’s The Rhythm of Life: Celtic Daily Prayer for, er, daily prayer. It’s a nice little easy-to-use office with certain “celtic” themes. But, unlike some attempts at celtic Christian spirituality it’s thoroughly grounded in Scripture and orthodox theology. There are four offices for each day of the week and each…
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Let us now praise Starbucks, Borders, Target…
Speaking of the blessings of a consumer society, Virginia Postrel, who is basically the anti-Crunchy Con, has an article in defense of chain stores (link will decay). As someone who grew up in a small town, I have come to appreciate chain stores. The much ballyhooed “mom and pop” stores in my home town were…
