Sojourners has just posted a handful of articles on the topics of consumerism and “the simple life.” One is by big time Radical Orthodoxy guy William Cavanaugh, which looks particularly interesting. A confession: it’s really easy for me to condemn consumerism in the abstract, but rejecting it in practice not so much. One way I…

One persistent criticism of John Paul II has been that the Vatican’s opposition to artificial means of birth control, specifically condoms, has exacerbated the African AIDS epidemic. For instance, in today’s Inquirer we get this op-ed, which reads, in part: John Paul II mesmerized those who saw him. He spoke forcefully for the dignity of…

There’s been a spate of articles in the press since John Paul’s death of the form “Conservatives say they like and admire the pope, but look they disagree with him on issue x, y, or z” (For examples see here and here. Maybe there have been pieces where conservatives made a similar charge against liberals,…

Russell Arben Fox has a fairly lengthy (but well worth reading) post on “John Paul II, Authority, and the Left.” It all ties in (but in a smart and nuanced way) to all the post-election talk about whether, and how, the Left (broadly speaking) does or doesn’t get the “moral values” issue. Russell raises a…

Philosopher Merold Westphal has a great essay on prayer in the newest Christian Century: Praise presupposes, I believe, a prior kenotic gesture, an inner posture from which all five elements of prayer most properly emerge. It is the willing decentering of the self. Ironically enough, it is utterly fundamental to what is increasingly called centering…

CT interviews philosopher Antony Flew on his recent “conversion” to deism. It’s pretty retro to be a deist, isn’t it? Very 18th century. Of course, Flew is also a devotee of 18th century political philosophy, so there you go. (Yes, I know Locke is technically 17th century, but the high-water mark of the influence of…

Love ‘im or hate ‘im, John Derbyshire remains the most elegant and interesting writer at National Review (though I would also give props to Jay Nordlinger). Anyway, here’s his rather gloomy piece on the legacy of John Paul II: So far as it makes any sense to predict the future, it seems to me highly…

Via Jonathan at The Ivy Bush comes this interesting article on a discussion between two Methodist theologians arguing that the UMC needs a greater emphasis on doctrine. Though I don’t know much about John Wesley, what struck me in the article’s description of his theology was how much he drew on other Christian traditions, and…

Anyone else seen the ads for this? It looks kind of like Left Behind meets the Da Vinci Code if you can believe that (crossing the red/blue divide!). The one thing that puzzles me is that based on the TV spots, it seems to be implying that the Second Coming involves Jesus coming back ……

This post on Anglican theologian R.R. Reno’s recent conversion to Catholicism got me to thinking about what it means to seek (and possibly find) the “true church.” Arguments about the claims and counter-claims of various churches can involve a complex set of interlocking historical and theological considerations (see, for instance, any number of comments threads…