Fantastic Piece by Douthat
I'm really coming to enjoy reading Ross Douthat's columns. I should have subscribed a long time ago. He's reasonable and measured, and though (and because) he's Catholic, we have similar worldviews. This was just a fantastic—but still measured, not over-the-top—put-down of Jerry Coyne's crusading materialism. Douthat helped me take a step further toward a thought that's been forming in my mind—or, as Coyne and other materialists would put it, toward a slightly new arrangement of atoms in my...
The New Calvinism in the New York Times
Two little points about this interesting little New York Times article (which doesn't end up saying much): 1. I wouldn't exactly agree with Oppenheimer's off-handed summary of Calvinistic belief: The Puritans were Calvinist. Presbyterians descend from Scottish Calvinists. Many early Baptists were Calvinist. But in the 19th century, Protestantism moved toward the non-Calvinist belief that humans must consent to their own salvation — an optimistic, quintessentially American belief. In the United...
Sotomayor Blocks HHS Contraception-Coverage Mandate
Praise the Lord, I think. Fuller details will come out soon, I'm sure.
Let Me Make the Songs of a Nation, and I Care Not Who Makes Its Laws
Andrew Fletcher famously said, "Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." I've heard this and similar arguments many times, and I just read another example in a helpful book, Gordon Wenham's The Psalter Reclaimed: The words hymn writers and liturgists put on our lips in worship affect us profoundly: they teach us what to think and feel, the more effectively as they are put to music so we can hum them to ourselves whenever we are inclined. (105) I want to believe...
Review: Christ and Culture Revisited
Christ and Culture Revisited by D.A. Carson My rating: 3 of 5 stars Carson serves up reminder after reminder that the question of context is all-important both in the interpretation of scripture and in its application to our current situation(s). Where Niebuhr is a reductionist, the Bible calls for—at different times and in different situations, not least in different "dispensations" or redemptive-historical eras—cultural transformation, participation, or opposition as appropriate. I love...