Next Thursday, January 28, is the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas. Over at my Return to Rome blog, I have dedicated January 23-28 to An Aquinas Catechism. It will include video lectures, excerpts from Thomas’ works, and words of praise from prelates and professors.

You can find the blog here. The first two installments are here and here.

Pat Robertson has been accused of blaming the Haiti earthquake on” God’s wrath” and Haiti’s “pact with the Devil” – though if you actually listen to his comments, that isn’t’ exactly true – though I would agree that his words, and their timing, were poorly chosen at best. Nothing really new for Reverend Robertson. Now, Danny Glover is blaming the Haiti earthquake on Gaia. So, my question to all you theologians: Who’s running this world, Father God or mother nature? Will Glover suffer the same scorn? Of course, the questions are rhetorical ones.

And, in a very strange providence, I watched a PBS documentary last night about Haiti and her revolutionary military leader, François-Dominique Toussaint L’ouverture. It was a fascinating film. Part of the narrative went into some detail about Haiti’s voodooism and their so-called “pact with the devil.” At about 6:11 into the following clip–and until the end of the clip taken from the PBS special–the connection between voodoo and Haiti’s revolution against France is quite plainly made by the narrative–the same connection to which Robertson referred in his now infamous comments. Hmmm . . . did the producers of this documentary consult with Pat Robertson or are they simply saying the same thing without the charismatic, evangelical “flair”?

Merry Christmas!

Well, Garrison Keillor must have been  a bit deep in the eggnog when he penned his latest column.  Evidently, he had been traumatized by a visit to a Unitarian church in Cambridge where they do Silent Night neo-pagan style:  ”I discovered that “Silent Night” has been cleverly rewritten to make it more about silence and night and not so much about God.”

Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that’s their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite “Silent Night.” If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough.

So far, so good.  However, I can’t imagine hearing something like this on Prairie Home Companion except as a smug shot a the Christian right (though he certainly has gentler parodies of the Unitarians here and there).

He then goes on to extend his tirade to the cabal of Jewish songwriters who provide the soundtrack for our holiday shopping.  Here he well and truly loses it:

And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write “Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah“? No, we didn’t.

Considering that he begins his column by lambasting Larry Summers (Harvard’s first Jewish president and a current economic advisor to the White House), I think we’re seeing a little of the anti-semitism that permeates the ever-so-nuanced NPR Left.

Sorry, Garrison, I don’t think I can do without White Christmas and, at this time when we celebrate the coming of the Messiah, I certainly can’t do without the Jews.

HT Powerline.  You can read their take on their fellow Minnesotan here.

Ever since I can remember remembering I have been fascinated with Vikings. I think it began when I read a condensed version of Beowulf in a Childcraft encyclopedia. The story was exciting and the pictures of huge warriors wearing horned or winged helmets wielding massive swords captured my imagination. Shortly thereafter I discovered Norse mythology and my interest in al things Viking skyrocketed.

However, the more I learned about the Vikings the more I understood that they were not, to put it mildly, friendly to Christendom. As the product of a devout Southern Baptist upbringing this was always somewhat troubling for me. Imagine my excitement when I discovered Lars Walker’s books about Erling Skjalgsson, Norway’s first Christian lord. The first book, The Year of the Warrior, is a rousing page turner that I simply could not put down. Simply put, it is an exciting mix of historical fiction and fantasy. Mr. Walker has continued Erling’s saga with his most recent book, West Oversea. In this book, Erling and his companions journey to the new world. As with the first book, West Oversea not only delivers an action packed story but also some penetrating spiritual insights. However, it does this without getting “preachy” or sacrificing good story telling. If you are strapped for gift ideas then look no further, just remember to get a copy for yourself.

Best interview yet with the guys from the White Horse Inn.  If you are crunched for time, start it up around the 20 minute mark.  Great questions.  And great commentary from the guys after I go off the air. (Just click on The End of Secularism under the Listen Now header.)

Highly recommended.

And, of course, here’s your obligatory link to the book.

(Originally posted on Return to Rome blog)

(Update II: You may download the Manhattan Declaration)
(Update: The Manhattan Declaration’s website)
This, just over the AP wire:

Christian leaders issue ‘call of conscience’

WASHINGTON — More than 150 Christian leaders, most of them conservative evangelicals and traditionalist Roman Catholics, issued a joint declaration Friday reaffirming their opposition to abortion and gay marriage and pledging to protect religious freedoms.

The 4,700-word document, called “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.

While acknowledging that “Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage,” the group rejects same-sex marriage. The declaration states that opening a legal door for gay marriage would do the same for “polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships.”

President Barack Obama’s desire to reduce the need for abortion is “a commendable goal,” but his proposals are likely to increase the number of elective abortions, the document contends.

“The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense,” it says.

Obama has said he wants to strike a balance on abortion coverage in the health care overhaul. The declaration also cites threats to health care workers’ conscience clauses and anti-discrimination statutes it argues impinge on religious freedoms.

Signatories include 15 Roman Catholic bishops, including New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl; Focus on the Family founder James Dobson; National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson; seminary leaders, professors and pastors.

Once the Manhattan Declaration is online, I will post a link to it.

(Originally posted on Return to Rome blog)

On this Reformation Day, I bring to your attention one of my favorite essays, penned by the president of Ignatius Press, Mark Brumley. Entitled, “Why Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation,” Brumley writes:

Interpreting the Reformation is complicated business. But like many complicated things, it can be simplified sufficiently well that even non-experts can get the gist of it. Here’s what seems a fairly accurate but simplified summary of the issue: The break between Catholics and Protestants was either a tragic necessity (to use Jaroslav Pelikan’s expression) or it was tragic because unnecessary.

Many Protestants see the Catholic/Protestant split as a tragic necessity, although the staunchly anti-Catholic kind of Protestant often sees nothing tragic about it. Or if he does, the tragedy is that there ever was such a thing as the Roman Catholic Church that the Reformers had to separate from. His motto is “Come out from among them” and five centuries of Christian disunity has done nothing to cool his anti-Roman fervor.

Yet for most Protestants, even for most conservative Protestants, this is not so. They believe God “raised up” Luther and the other Reformers to restore the Gospel in its purity. They regret that this required a break with Roman Catholics (hence the tragedy) but fidelity to Christ, on their view, demanded it (hence the necessity).

Catholics agree with their more agreeable Protestant brethren that the sixteenth century division among Christians was tragic. But most Catholics who think about it also see it as unnecessary. At least unnecessary in the sense that what Catholics might regard as genuine issues raised by the Reformers could, on the Catholic view, have been addressed without the tragedy of dividing Christendom.

Yet we can go further than decrying the Reformation as unnecessary. In his ground-breaking work, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, Louis Bouyer argued that the Catholic Church herself is necessary for the full flowering of the Reformation principles. In other words, you need Catholicism to make Protestantism work — for Protestantism’s principles fully to develop. Thus, the Reformation was not only unnecessary; it was impossible. What the Reformers sought, argues Bouyer, could not be achieved without the Catholic Church.

You can read the whole thing here.

(Originally posted on the Return to Rome blog)

Today, October 31, is Reformation Day, a day on which many Protestants commemorate Martin Luther’s nailing of his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral on October 31, 1517. Writes Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft, “The Protestant Reformation began when a Catholic monk rediscovered a Catholic doctrine in a Catholic book. The monk, of course, was Luther; the doctrine was justification by faith; and the book was the Bible.”

In 2005, Baker Book House published Is The Reformation Over?: An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism, authored by the eminent historian Mark A. Noll and journalist Carolyn Nystrom. It was one of the many works that I read on my journey back to the Catholic Church. As I write in chapter 5 of Return to Rome:

Although this led me to read other sources including the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, I also read several reviews of the Noll/Nystrom book, one of which was written by Carl R. Trueman, Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary. I single out this review because of its concluding paragraph, which rocked me to the core:
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31 October is Reformation Day.

Last weekend I had the privilege to address the 18th annual Marian Conference in Boyne Falls, Michigan. Among the other speakers was my high school classmate, the Most Reverend Alexander K. Sample, Catholic Bishop of Marquette, Michigan. It was such a joy to visit with Bishop Sample, who I had not seen in over 30 years. We are members of the 1978 graduating class of Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. Enclosed in this blog entry are photos of us at the conference. In one of them is Bishop Sample’s mother, Mrs. Joyce Dory Sample. The photos were taken by Joshua Mercer, the gentleman who directed the conference, and performed exceptionally in that capacity. (For more information on the conference as well as the Marian Center, which is run by Josh and his lovely wife, Lori, see the website mariancenter.org.)

(Originally posted on Return to Rome blog)

I will be a guest on tomorrow’s Deep in Scripture radio program, hosted by Marcus Grodi. The passages of Scripture we will discuss is one that has a profound influence on my life, I Peter 3:14-17 (RSV):

But even if you do suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence; and keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God’s will, than for doing wrong.

You can listen to the program at 9 pm EDT on October 21. It is broadcast on EWTN radio and its affiliates, a list of which you can find here.

Just discovered a new blog at First Things, Evangel. Some of my favorite people are blogging there, including John Mark Reynolds, Russell Moore, Justin Taylor, and my former student Hunter Baker (who recently published the outstanding book, The End of Secularism). I was, however, surprised to find that rabid anti-Catholic blogger Frank Turk is among the cadre of Evangel’s bloggers. Soon after I became Catholic, Mr. Turk opined that my return to Catholicism at age 46 was as hollow as when I became a Protestant as a teenager. Read it here.

I had no idea that Mr. Turk was so gifted in the clairvoyant arts, able to not only jump the space-time continuum to observe my teenage years but to pierce the veil of cognitive and spiritual privacy in order to extract from my soul the reflections, contemplations, and judgments that were instrumental in my journey back to Catholicism. Given his unusual interest in comic book aesthetics, perhaps he possesses powers not unlike the mutants that populate the imaginary world to which he seems so drawn (pardon the pun). Or perhaps he is just ill-mannered and presumptuous.

(Originally posted on Return to Rome blog)

That’s the title of my newest book. The publisher’s web page for the book, along with its cover, just appeared online this week.

Politics for Christians will be released by InterVarsity Press in March 2010. It is not an academic monograph (like Defending Life, which was published by Cambridge in 2007), but a brief introduction to the study of politics for Christian college students. But it’s not activism oriented. It is geared toward dealing with the philosophical issues that percolate beneath the religion-politics discussions that are ubiquitous in the public square. Here’s what the publisher says about the book:
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This one’s getting hot in the blogosphere, especially the leftosphere, which lives for well-deserved fun at “conservative” expense. [Especially since they cannot affirmatively defend the president's and the leftist congressional leadership's communitarian agenda on its own merits.]

Still, the lefties have cause for derision.

Conservapedia.com is a lame and intellectually underpowered effort to counter the left-leaning bias of Wikipedia, which is a “People’s encyclopedia.” Unfortunately for the truth, lefties seem far more motivated to contribute their “truth” to the internet, as if truth can be democratized, a matter of consensus and shouting loudest.

As opposed to you know, truth.

Anyway to cut back to the conservapedists, they’ve started a
“Conservative Bible Project.”

Arrrgh. Did I, as a self-described conservative, sign up for this?

They have some good points, like opposing the contemporary current towards monkeying with Biblical language toward “gender-neutrality.”

However, they’ve also taken aim at perhaps the most beloved and beautiful story in the New Testament, from John 8:

1Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.

11She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

That’s the King James Version; the Catholic Douay-Rheims is right in that zone too.

Although Roman Catholics don’t give a damn, since the pericope de adultera ["story of the adulteress"] was declared canonical by the Council of Trent [1563], we got modern day fundies actually rejecting a passage of the Bible based on Biblical scholarship, its case being somewhat persuasive, since there were early versions of the Gospel of John that lacked this passage!

[Moving directly from Jn 7 to Jn 8 omitting the pericope de adultera!]

Anywayz, who says religion is boring? We got fundamentalists erasing parts of the Bible, and the Magisterium telling them to chill.

What a world. I’m not sure conservatives should take this one lying down. Otherwise we give this one up to conservatives like Andrew Sullivan, and as one of those other self-described conservatives, I get cast as picking up a rock to stone the adulteress.

I’m not good with that. Not good atall.

One of the most well-worn cliches in modern politics is that the Republican party and the conservative movement have become too religious.  We’ve been portrayed as scary Christianists bent on creating a theocracy.  Both secular and Christian leftists have attempted to attack the right by claiming especially that conservative economic theory runs directly against Christ’s teachings.  In so doing the Christian leftists have revealed their own  “theocratic”   leanings.  Moreover, they have tried to recruit Jesus Christ to their cause on economic issues because they realize they have fallen short on social issues.

The latest portrayal of Jesus Christ, socialist superstar, is Michael Moore’s latest bomb. (Please go see this movie.  Michael Moore is very sad that you are not seeing his movie.  You could be in grave danger if you don’t go and support him.)  As Ann Althouse details, Moore littered his anti-capitalist screed with a healthy dose of that old time religion.  He trains his camera on Priests who have unkind words for the free market, and Moore of course relies on out of context scriptural readings that evidently support the hypothesis that Christ was the original Marxist.

Alan Colmes – noted non-Christian – also claims that Christ would be not-so-approving of the modern GOP.  It’s always helpful when non-Christians try to claim some insight into what the non-Messiah might have been thinking.

Again, this is all very silly.  But what’s most infuriating about these arguments is that it reveals the left’s own attempts to appropriate Jesus to advance their political interests in a fashion that their opponents rarely do.  Aside from the promoters of the Prosperity Gospel, few conservative Christians actually try to advance the idea that their particular economic theories have been especially endorsed by the Lord.  Of course we’ll argue that our ideas do not conflict with Christian values, and Catholic conservatives will cite passages from both Scripture and the Catechism to disprove the notion that our ideas are at odds with Church teachings.  But rarely will you these same people act as though their ideas and their ideas alone are the only God-approved ways of thinking about economic issues.

The fact of the matter is that we probably all fall short when it comes to economic matters.  There is a strand of conservative thinking that is uncaring when it comes to addressing the needs of the poor and is influenced by a Randian worldview that places far, far too much stock in individualism.  But leftists are guilty of violating subsidiarity, and I believe their reliance on government assistance de-emphasizes personal responsibility and charity.

The Christian left can rationalize all they want, but the fact of the matter is social issues are much more black and white, and Church teachings on matters such as abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage and other issues are absolute and unchanging.  Left-wing Catholics and other Christians either ignore clear teachings on these matters or give aid and comfort to those who do.  Therefore I think that when it comes to economic issues, they are driven by a need to prove their Christian bona fides by asserting that they are the good stewards on economic matters.  It’s always rather sad when guilty consciences try to over-compensate for their shortcomings in other areas.  But no one should be fooled by what’s really happening here.

I always admire the sincerity and honesty with which Andrew Sullivan approaches questions of faith: he is critically skeptical of the Church’s position on a host of issues and makes zero bones about it. He recoils at the idea of the Church (neh, God’s law…) prohibiting suicide even during the greatest moments of pain: (more…)

“I don’t think we put enough stress on the necessity of implanting in the child’s mind the moral code under which we live.

The fundamental basis of this Nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days.

If we don’t have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally wind up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the state.”

OK, OK, you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s not Glenn Beck.

The answer is

Harry S. Truman
Address Before the Attorney General’s Conference on Law Enforcement Problems
February 15, 1950

Now, I don’t necessarily agree with him chapter and verse, but it wasn’t all that long ago that such talk was uncontroversial.

Although these days it seems like a million years…

___________________
[HT: WorldTribune-Editor.]

Last Thursday, September 3, I participated in a public dialogue with my friend Timothy George, Dean of the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University (Birmingham, Alabama). Entitled, “Can You Be Catholic and Evangelical?,” it took place at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. A video of the event is now online. You can find it here.

There are many people that made this event possible, including my friend, Timothy George, who is an exemplar of deep learning and Christian charity. Another friend, Chris Castaldo, a pastor at College Church in Wheaton, did an outstanding job in moderating this dialogue. And if not for the generosity of the Penner family, this event would not have been possible. They deserve special thanks for their unyielding support of Wheaton’s Christian mission. And, as has always been my experience at that institution, its leadership’s professionalism and hospitality could not have been bettered. It was a delight to meet both President Duane Litfin as well as Dr. Vincent Bacote, Director of the Wheaton Center for Applied Christian Ethics, the academic unit that sponsored the event. Thank you.

(Originally posted on Return to Rome blog)

I will be a guest on EWTN’s The Journey Home on September 14. It is broadcast at 8 pm EDT.

This is the second time I will have appeared on the program. The first time was on September 24, 2007. You can find a video of that episode here.

Coincidentally, my friend, Mary C. Moorman, a lawyer and theologian, will be a guest on The Journey Home two weeks later on September 28. Mary is a former Presbyterian and Anglican. She is also a former student of my long-time and dear friend Michael Bauman (Professor of Theology & Culture, Hillsdale College).

This summer has been one of profitable reading for me. Among the many books I have read are two that are particularly outstanding. Their virtue lies in the skillful, informed, and clear way they dismantle the case for unbelief made by a small cluster of writers that has come to be known as “The New Atheists.” (To paraphrase Peter Townsend, “Meet the new atheism, same as the old atheism,” except that the old atheism was far more sophisticated and understanding of the gravity of what it was rejecting. When you move from Bertrand Russell to Richard Dawkins, you’re not trading up).

I highly recommend God Is No Delusion: A Refutation of Richard Dawkins by Thomas Crean, O. P. (Ignatius Press, 2007) and Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies by David Bentley Hart (Yale University Press, 2009). Fr. Crean does yeoman’s work by offering a largely philosophical and theological response to the new atheists, and yet it is fully accessible to non-specialists. Professor Hart takes up the task of dismantling the sophomoric historical narrative of the new atheists. Neither author suffers fools, which makes for some entertaining reading as well. Both authors have been interviewed about their books. You can listen to John J. Miller’s NRO interview of Professor Hart here. Ignatius Press has published an interview with Fr. Crean, which you can find here. Enjoy.
(Originally posted on First Thoughts)

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church has passed a resolution which calls for homosexuals  who are in “committed same sex relationships” to be allowed to be appointed to “all orders”, i.e. serve as priests, bishops, etc.   I am still trying to come to grips with what all of this means for the Church, my parish and my family but the thoughts of Bishop Wright regarding the impact of this decision appear to be a correct assessment:

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Whenever freedom is lost, wherever tyranny is found, there are three accompanying factors: religious oppression, economic depression, and a culture of death.

Orwell’s 1984 provides a vivid example of this principle. Religion in Oceania has been wholly abolished, the people live in government-induced squalor, and the state routinely comes between children and their parents, and is working on preventing marriage altogether.

But there are ample historical examples as well. (more…)

On this feast day of St. Thomas More, patron saint of politicians, it seems appropriate to mention my latest enterprise.

Southern Appeal has always been a law blog, among other things. When I came on board as a contributor, it was in spite of my lack of experience with the law. I am now endeavoring to gain a greater involvement with the law — as a legislator.

I am a candidate for the Illinois legislature. I am seeking to unseat a Republican incumbent who has voted to repeal parental notifications for minors seeking abortions, voted to increase state funding of abortion, voted to abolish conscience protections for pro-life healthcare providers, voted for state funding of embryo-destructive stem cell research, who voted to remove the requirement that abortion providers be physicians, and who voted to protect abortion providers from malpractice suits. Her largest contributor is a pro-abortion PAC, and she has repeatedly been endorsed by Planned Parenthood.

And in 2008, she ran unopposed in both the primary and the general election.

I am running against her as a regular guy with no money, no organization, and virtually no relevant experience. But at least I know what a person is.

For me to beat her may require a miracle. But as a Christian, I believe in miracles. I’m asking for your prayers, for the intercession of St. Thomas More. And if you want to help spread the word, I’d be grateful for that as well.

St. Thomas More, Patron of politicians, ora pro nobis.

Jon Foreman – Your Love Is Strong

A few weeks back, I posted a version of the famed Richard John Neuhaus/Rockford Institute break-up incident. The story there was that the break-up happened because Neuhaus overspent the Institute’s budget on conferences after having been ordered to cancel them. That version of the story came from John Howard, who used to run the Rockford Institute a number of years ago. Howard’s version was new to me. I’d mainly heard the rumblings about ideological discontent and jumped at the chance to shed a little light on a longtime mystery.

Joseph Bottum, who now runs First Things, offers more discussion about the incident on page 69 of the June/July issue of the magazine. He reiterates the story of ideological animus, but does provide some reinforcement to the budget/conference planning story I mentioned before. However, according to Bottum there was a conference Neuhaus was ordered to cancel, but he refused because the planning was too far along and he had raised adequate earmarked funds. So, Howard’s story is that Neuhaus went beyond his mandate and the Neuhaus story is that Rockford crawfished on a deal!

I was thrilled to see the discussion continued at FT, but I have one small objection. Dr. Howard is presented in the short piece as bringing Neuhaus in for some “knocks” on the occasion of his death. That part isn’t really fair. In the conversation I had with Howard (who is probably an octogenarian), he was very complimentary of Father Neuhaus and clearly respected his body of work. I asked him to tell me the story and he did. Tone doesn’t come across in the typed word many times. That applies here. Dr. Howard was clearly proud of having been associated with Father Neuhaus and of having hired him.

 I will be a guest on the Hugh Hewitt and Bible Answer Man programs on May 26 and 28. On the former I will be talking about my new book, Return to Rome: Confessions of An Evangelical Catholic (Brazos Press, 2009). On the latter I will be discussing a chapter I contributed to the new book published by Christian Research Institute, What is Truth?: The Best of the Christian Research Journal (CRI, 2009). The chapter, “Deconstructing Liberal Tolerance” was originally published in 2000 in the Christian Research Journal.

(Cross posted on Return to Rome and What’s Wrong with the World)

In the midst of an excellent piece on the abortion issue, Teri O’Brien recently asked the question, “could one be a ‘centrist’ on the issue of slavery?”

The answer is, of course one could. Back in the day, U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas (D-IL; who was Barack Obama’s direct predecessor in the U.S. Senate), was the voice of moderation on the slavery issue. Douglas could be described as “pro-choice” on slavery, although he preferred to speak of “popular sovereignty,” by which he meant the rights of the people of the several states and territories to decide the slavery question for themselves. (more…)