Marcus explains why he’s batting for the other team now (so to speak).

Interesting piece from A. N. Wilson in the London Spectator: Rowan Williams is sufficiently intelligent and normal to be aware that in the West, being religious these days is, outside America, very distinctly odd, and trying to defend Christianity against the whole ethos of materialism and scientific rationalism which most intelligent people take for granted…

Unlike a lot of people who write about “red” and “blue” America, Michael Lind has an understanding of the various and diverse ethno-cultural groups that make up the USA. In his book Vietnam: The Necessary War, for example, he discussed how these ethno-cultural factors influenced attitudes toward the politics of the Vietnam war. Here Lind…

An interesting, if somewhat condescending, report on a growing sensitivity to environmental issues among evangelicals. This October, the board of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), representing 51 denominations encompassing 30 million American evangelical Christians, unanimously approved a document entitled “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.” The declaration calls…

Thinking about my personal picks for the best music of 2004 brings home the fact that I really do not have my finger on the pulse of pop music. Looking at various people’s “best of” lists makes me realize that I don’t know who about 70% of the artists even are! Nevertheless, I did manage…

It appears that the assertion of “Merry Christmas” (in preference to, say, “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings”) has become yet another front in the culture war. “Merry Christmas” is now associated with red-state heartland values and separates its user from those godless decadent blue-staters. Christmas itself has become politicized. But wait, Christmas has always had…

An article from the Christian Century on the resurgence of interest in Mary and Marian devotions among Protestant theologians. The most important contribution of these recent reflections is to give fresh attention to the incarnation. The Council of Ephesus insisted that what Christians hold true about God is that God is not unwilling to get…

From the American Spectator: Journalists in Washington have been buzzing for days over reports that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is backing former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer for Democratic National Committee chairman. Why? Because Roemer is pro-life. Could the staunchly pro-choice San Francisco Democrat really be putting her support behind this guy? Yes. While Pelosi…

From Fr. Jim Tucker at Dappled Things: Xmas — Here is one of my pet peeves: people who take it upon themselves to oppose the supposedly un-Christian and secular use of “Xmas” as an alternative to “Christmas.” The “X” in question is not, in fact, the usual Latin letter, but rather the Greek letter “chi.”…

In the passage I quoted below, Peter Leithart says: Solus Christus answered the question, How can I have communion with God? Sola Scriptura answered the logically prior epistemological question, From what source do I learn how I can commune with God? Solus Christus means Jesus alone can bring sinners into true life, the life of…