The Import of the Incarnation
What is the central doctrine of Christianity, the incarnation or the cross? Christmas or Easter? What is the root heresy, the corruption or denial of the central doctrine? What is the motivation for and consequence of this error? What is...
A Christmas Carol, by GK Chesterton
The Christ-child lay on Mary’s lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright.) The Christ-child lay on Mary’s breast, His hair was like a star. (O stern and cunning are...
Birthdays & Deathdays (Morbidity & Science)
The anniversary of the day of my birth was last Tuesday. I did not do much. Should I have? But my brother bought me dinner and my dad aims to as well, so I rest content. I prefer to spend...
First Black President (redux)
“What if just to mess up the Democrats, Bush resigned this week. What if, when Dick Cheney became president, he appointed Condoleezza Rice as his VP. What if Dick Cheney then resigned. Condie would be the first black president and...
You voted?
The national badge of pride today is the ubiquitous, modest, and yet glorious sticker sporting the (short and yet complete) sentence: “I voted.” Anyone sporting this sticker is rewarded not only with the pride of civic duty accomplished, but free...
“When Money Fails”
“Money is only one of many intangibles upon which our world rests. Our culture gods are far more flimsy than one would expect. In the Scriptures, within the Revelation of St. John, the angel cries, “Babylon the Great is fallen,...
Google Chrome: They’ve Done it A-Gain
Google doesn’t seem to make mistakes. In response to the current arms-race between Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mac Safari*, Opera, and Mozilla Firefox, they’ve quietly designed and now released (in BETA) a brand new, google-style web browser. It’s called Google Chrome. Mm,...
Why Didn’t Jesus Start a Megachurch?
(No small bit of reading, but) check out Scott Thumma’s dissertation research on Megachurches. A nice factoid: “Megachurches are a new phenomenon. This is not to say that very large congregations were absent from the history of the Christian Church...
The Evangelical Epidemic
C Michael Patton carefully observes the (increasingly common) trend of people becoming doubtful, disillusioned, and eventually departing from Christ. David Sanford observes, “Any business that is losing 31 million of its customers is going out of business.” Check out his...
Four Theoretical Problems with Writing
I spent the last two months reading and thinking about the Phaedrus. What a fascinating little book of Plato’s. I’d like to present four theoretical problems with writing itself. I do this for a) for people who (like me) never before...