Nothing makes an ideologue madder than actual people.
People have the obstinate desire to live their own lives, refusing to fit into the neat little patterns of the ideologue. The rest of us know, as Aristotle taught, that all human institutions have to be left a bit messy at the edges or they become unbearable. One size does not fit all and for any society to work, especial...
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Is our ability to follow long arguments, to process information well, and to meditate on the "big picture" suffering from a sea of triviality? The elite will keep reading, but is the "middlebrow" class, those who read well and kept the republic moving, disappearing?
As a teacher, my experience with students indicates that this article (while a bit overstated) is mostly righ...
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John Wesley, in a letter to the American Methodist preacher John King in 1778:
Scream no more at peril of your soul. God now warns you by me, whom he has set over you. Speak as earnestly as you can, but do not scream. Speak with all your heart, but with a moderate voice. It was said of our Lord, 'He shall not cry.' The word means properly, he shall not scream. Herein be a fo...
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When a nickname really fits somebody, it catches on and comes to mind easily. But when somebody doesn't have a good nickname, it's no good forcing things. I was recently leafing through a fun book, Asa Don Dickinson's 1931 list of classics called The Thousand Best Books (see it here). Dickinson was a world-class bibliofanatic, and he zips through 1,000 classics with a judg...
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Bottom Line: Obama should be winning easily. Instead, he is running a campaign that is still messaging to the already converted. While McCain is not running a great campaign, he is running a steady one. Senator Obama is blowing it.
Argument:
Polls can fluctuate, but at present Senator Obama seems unable to close the deal with the American electorate. There is no respecta...
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Featured Essay
I write this as I am on my way home from two weeks of teaching at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin. It was a good two weeks and I am grateful to the hard-working, thoughtful students who represent all that is good about the Episcopal Church in the United States. I was teaching a class entitled “History and Theology of Priestly Spirituality,” which in non-Epi...
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I've just reviewed Alan Jacobs' new book Original Sin: A Cultural History for Books & Culture. I'd like to recommend both to you. Jacobs writes beautiful, thoughtful books. (I'm finishing his other new book, on the nature of Christian testimony, now.) And if you haven't looked at Books & Culture, think Christianity Today meets the New York Times Review of Books. Here's the revi...
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For Mark Makin and Carri Javier, July 18, 2008
Part I: A Thing
Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here today because we want to witness the creation of a new thing. This thing is a new family, this new household consisting of Mark and Carri, this Makin family, this couple, this one new reality, this thing which was not previously on the universal catalog of “thin...
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The Duty to Defend the (Nearly) Indefensible
Recently, P.Z. Myers, a professional scientist and amateur critic of religion, raised a fuss when he said:
. . . I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure — but if any of you would be wil...
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Charles Simeon knew the secret of staying centered on the Gospel even when the centrifugal forces of controversy conspired to knock him off balance. His approach was classically described by HCG Moule in his Simeon biography (starting around page 96).
Simeon's main goal in all his preaching was to emphasize what God wanted emphasized, and he did this by putting the stress...
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Featured Essay
The history of the church is filled with great pastors and teachers. Even if you skip over the church fathers, the medievals, and the reformers, confining yourself to recent times--say these past two and a half centuries-- there are more than enough great theologians and devotional writers to keep you busy, well-fed, informed, and inspired. Now and then some clever blogger ma...
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The Obama campaign is beginning to show signs of hubris. They seem to think that all they need to do to win is show up in November to pick up their mandate. This very attitude has become one of the great hopes for the Republican Party. Recently they made the decision to have the Senator accept the Democrat Party nomination in a giant stadium speech in front of seventy-thousand ...
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