There’s been a minor tempest in a blogspot in some quarters over the fact that the newly elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori preached a sermon in which she referred to Jesus as “Mother.” Surely, we’re told, this is the death knell of kooky liberal mainline Protestantism which has finally sold…

The Independent Institute has posted an “Open Letter on Immigration” with over 500 signatures from economists and other social scientists, including five Nobel Laureates. These folks come form across the political spectrum, but support the idea that immigration has been and continues to be a net gain for the U.S.A.

(See here for previous post.) In chapter 3 of his Past Event and Present Salvation, Paul Fiddes tackles the question of the historical Jesus and how our knowledge of his earthly ministry should shape our understanding of atonement. He rejects the view, associated with Bultmann and others, that we can’t know much of anything about…

Noam Chomsky delivering a lecture on just war theory to a group of cadets at West Point. Makes for interesting listening/viewing. Via Red State Son.

I just received a copy of British theologian Paul S. Fiddes’ Past Event and Present Salvation: The Christian Idea of Atonement. As the title indicates, Fiddes is concerned with the relationship between the historical event of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and how the salvation those events make possible is appropriated in the present. Here’s…

Andrew Greeley thinks so (via Conservative Green): The United States is not much good as an imperial power because it lacks two of the qualities essential for effective imperialism: a population that is ready to absorb serious casualties in the cause of the empire and leadership that is sufficiently cynical to abandon moralism when there…

There have been some great comments on the Eucharistic adoration post, much better informed and more insightful than the original post, in fact! On a related note, here’s the text of the sermon that was preached at The Church of the Advent on Corpus Christi. Yesterday we worshipped at Trinity Church (Episcopal) in Copley Square.…

Rod Dreher and others have been discussing David Brooks’ (he of the pithy generalizations) new political typology of “populist nationalists” vs. “progressive globalists” (The original Brooks column is available to NY Times subscribers only). Populist nationalists, in Brooks’ account, see themselves as “the ordinary, burden-bearing people of this country. … the ones who work hard…

On a lark I recently picked up the latest CD by Tool called 10,000 Days. Amusingly, I heard a DJ say that the title referred to the length of time George Bush has been in office. Now, I realize to some it may seem like Bush has been in office for nearly three decades, but…

Many critics of Christianity, and not a few Christians themselves, have seen belief in eternal life as competing with a commitment to making life better here and now. C.S. Lewis didn’t think so; in fact, he thought a vivid belief in our eternal destiny provided us with a strong impetus for being concerned with the…