Blogger emeritus Peter Nixon in Commonweal: It is hard to escape the conclusion that the distinct voice that Catholics once brought to the public square is gradually being lost. In its place, we see the emergence of two separate Catholic political cultures, each serving the needs of one of the two major parties, and each…

Or, more precisely, in what sense can we say the church “created” the canon of Scripture (since “the church” obviously preceded the NT)? And what does this mean for the Protestant principle of sola scriptura? The age-old debate is revisited at Here We Stand and Pontifications. See here, here, and here. I think all parties…

Go here and find out.

Eric Lee asks how a non-pacifist interprets such Biblical passages as Jesus’ commendation of nonresistance in chapter 5 of Matthew’s Gospel. Now, not only am I not a biblical scholar, I’m not even a particularly well-versed or frequent reader of Scripture! So, hopefully someone with a real theological education will jump in here. Nevertheless, bloggers…

I’m going to reply to a couple of points Camassia made about just war theory (hereafter JWT) starting with what I thought were two particularly incisive questions of hers that I mentioned here. Camassia writes: When I read the people Lee quotes, or the article I linked last week, the arguments remind me of Martin…

Here is the text of a brief treatise Martin Luther wrote on prayer. His barber Peter had asked Luther for advice on how to pray, and this was his response. Luther recommends taking a portion of Scripture such as the Ten Commandments or a Psalm, or the Creed or the Lord’s Prayer, and making of…

This post on heresy generated some very good comments, so I thought I would just throw one last thing into the mix. Lutheran theologian Ed Schroeder (whose Thursday Theology column has become a must-read for me) discusses here how “good fruits” must be rooted in the Gospel: The object of Christian faith, the reality that…

A recent poll suggests that Bob Casey Jr. stands the best chance of any of the potential Democratic contenders of unseating Rick Santorum in 2006. Casey was just installed as state treasurer and it’s not clear yet if he’s going to run. Like his father, Casey is pro-life and anti-gun control, which suggests he will…

Camassia has a typically insightful post on the question of war for Christians. She raises two points in particular that I think are worth thinking about: What, if anything, makes just war theory a particularly Christian approach to war? And is JWT an attempt to substitute our justice for God’s? Also, here’s a discussion from…

I would be the last to claim that “reality” TV reflects reality in any more than a distorted, often grotesque, way. Still, sometimes I do think that moments of truth slip through the carefully choreographed nonsense. For instance, we were watching American Idol last night (yes, yes – get all the chortling out), and there…