My best friend of 22 years, Barry Joslin, has a new blog, on which he has posted a favorable review of a certain book (a book whose name I don’t want to mention seeing as how I don’t want to appear self-serving, though please don’t expect me to direct your attention to any negative reviews of said book ).Go check out Barry’s new site. As the kids say, it’s da bomb!
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Ken Lay, R.I.P.
In May, I wrote about what I thought was the political significance of the Enron convictions and of the Ken Lay saga. It turns out that the end of the story happened this morning when Ken Lay died of a massive heart attack. R.I.P.“Enron Founder Ken Lay Dead of Heart Attack†– Washington Post
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Newsweek Promotes God’s Girls
In an article titled “God’s Girls,†Newsweek magazine reports that many major Christian Churches are behind the times in promoting women to the highest levels of denominational leadership. Women make up 61 percent of all Americans who attend religious congregations, but they still struggle for their place in some denominations. A national study led by researchers at Hartford Seminary found that only 12 percent of the clergy in the 15 largest Protestant denominations are women. And some 112 million Americans belong to denominations that don’t ordain women at all, including Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Southern Baptists, Mormons, Muslims and Orthodox Jews (source). Is Newsweek really suggesting that the high…
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July 4th and Jimmy Stewart Populism
Well, I guess I’m still a Populist. At least I felt like one as my family and I spent our July 4th evening watching Jimmy Stewart stick it to the man in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. There’s nothing like a little Jimmy Stewart to get you fired up about July 4th. Take a listen to a snippet from this speech from Mr. Smith. It’s almost as good as when Jimmy Stewart told off Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life.Enjoy and happy 4th!
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Who do Wiccans worship?
There’s an interesting item in today’s Washington Post about a soldier killed in Afghanistan who was a Wiccan. The fact that a veteran’s cemetary is not letting his widow put a pentacle (a pagan symbol, pictured right) on his memorial is a controversy in itself.But what jumped off the page to me in the Post article was it’s description of Wicca: Wiccans still suffer, however, from the misconception that they are devil worshipers. Some Wiccans call themselves witches, pagans or neopagans. Most of their rituals revolve around the cycles of nature, such as equinoxes and phases of the moon. Wiccans often pick and choose among religious traditions, blending belief in…
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James Taranto on Media Bias
James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal compiles a summary of left-leaning media bias in reports on last week’s Hamdan decision. I think the summary deserves our attention: “The Supreme Court on Thursday repudiated the Bush administration’s plan to put Guantánamo detainees on trial before military commissions, ruling broadly that the commissions were unauthorized by federal statute and violated international law. . . . The decision was . . . a sweeping and categorical defeat for the administration.“–New York Times “The Supreme Court yesterday struck down the military commissions President Bush established to try suspected members of al-Qaeda, emphatically rejecting a signature Bush anti-terrorism measure and the broad assertion of…
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Where Atrocity Is Normal
Patrick Stone’s essay in Christianity Today is powerful and poignant. In “Where Atrocity Is Normal: Understanding Christian soldiers who have seen the horrors of war,†Stone recounts his own experience in Vietnam and reminds us of the atrocities of war and the impossible moral choices that face Christians who participate in them.Not only are the war stories tragic, but so also is his description of what his experience has been since coming home from Vietnam: Following my return from Vietnam I spent most Sunday mornings in a church pew wondering, “What does this have to do with what I saw and did in Vietnam?†. . . Since leaving Vietnam…
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Don’t Get in Peggy Noonan’s Doghouse!
Readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of Peggy Noonan’s weekly column in the Wall Street Journal (previous posts). I look forward to it every Thursday.Her piece this morning is a wry, free-wheeling commentary on sundry topics in the news and pop culture. One thing I take away from this article is that I never want to be in Noonan’s doghouse. She takes a whack at several personalities who she thinks are attempting to “spin†and manipulate Americans. Here’s a sampling: On Hillary Clinton: “Hillary . . . doesn’t have to prove she’s a man, she has to prove she’s a woman. No one in America…
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Review of The Last Word by N. T. Wright
N. T. Wright. The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005. 160pp. $19.95. I appreciate Bishop N. T. Wright’s willingness to address the church through writing popular books. Wright is the consummate scholar and is perfectly capable of producing the kind of work that would only be accessible to specialists in the field of New Testament studies. Yet over the years he has included among his prolific output books addressed to the interested layman. His recent short work, The Last Word: Beyond the Bible Wars to a New Understanding of the Authority of Scripture, is one such book.
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Al Mohler and the XXX ‘Church’ on ABC News
Just to follow-up on my previous post about the XXX ‘Church,’ I wanted to let you know that Dr. Albert Mohler was included in a segment on ABC News about the so-called XXX ‘Church.’ You can read the story here, or watch the video here.