“Hotel Pornography and the Market of Morality” —Public Discourse
Catholic public intellectual Robert George and Muslim leader Shaykh Hamza Yusuf put out a call to hotels to stop selling pornography on demand. It harms our society, they say. Villanova law professor Robert Miller agrees, but points out that hotels have to be careful how they justify removing porn. If they say it's immoral, they can be sued for removing a major money-maker for shareholders. But if they say it's unprofitable, they're okay. This is another reason I think it's important for...
Esther’s Story, Our Story, and God’s: A Meditation
The book of Esther never mentions God. It doesn’t discuss temple services or sanctification or justification. And yet without these biblical ideas providing context, the story will make little sense—or the wrong sense! The teaching of Esther is all the more profound and memorable because it is never stated directly. The closest Yahweh comes to the surface is probably in the famous words Mordecai directs at his ward, Esther, “Who knoweth, whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as...
A Quote Worth Saving
The writer [of NT epistles] does not announce a succession of revelations, or arrest the inquiries which he encounters in men’s hearts by the unanswerable formula, “Thus saith the Lord.” He arouses, he animates, he goes along with the working of men’s minds, by showing them the working of his own. He utters his own convictions, he pours forth his own experience, he appeals to others to “judge what he says,” and commends his words “to their conscience in the sight of God.” He confutes by...
Puritans, Fundamentalists, and Evangelicals: A Question of Definition
Here's a great quote from Adam Nicolson's God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible: "A puritan is such a one," the London lawyer John Manningham wrote in 1602, "as loves God with all his soul, but hates his neighbour with all his heart." Anyone who took a stricter line on the demands of scripture than the person speaking could be labelled a Puritan. Nicolson points out that the definition and shape of Puritanism was a point of disagreement in Jacobean England. Reading this, of...