Catholics
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Nostalgia
As a phenomenon of postmodern culture, nostalgia is a manifestation of a deracination of both the self and culture. It arises from a deep sense of displacement, or dis-ease, with the present, and an inability to trust the future. There may well be a lurking awareness of nihilism which marks modernity. The strategy is to
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Jesus Camp
This Pentecost weekend I saw the documentary about Becky Fischer's camp for shaping young evangelicals into the righteous army who will take back America for Christ. I don't think I was bothered so much by the religious aspects which, to be frank, were not that different from some of the indoctrination I received in Catholic
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Part 4: On Being a Postmodern Catholic
Consider this an epilogue to the three parts in this series that precede it. There are a bunch of random themes and ideas that didn’t fit into the already too-long earlier pieces, and I have been thinking about whether it would be worthwhile to continue on in successive parts to explore them. But the nature
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Part 3: On Being a Postmodern Catholic
After listening to the Phillip Johnston podcast I referred to in my post about Getting Perspective on Iran, I subscribed to the "Speaking of Faith" free podcast service, and it immediately downloads dozens of their shows from the past, and as Sir Francis and forestwalker point out in their comments, many of them look very
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Part 2: On Being a Postmodern Catholic
This post is a follow-up to Part 1, which should be read before this one. Both Parts I and II, with Parts III & IV to come, are attempts to represent to sane outsiders why the creedal elements in Christianity, as contrasted with a generalized transcendentalism, are so compelling to sane insiders. This a personal
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Part 1: On Being a Postmodern Catholic
This post is more or less connected to the debate between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan, and a followup to my two posts about it in the last week here and here. If this subject interests you, I encourage you to read the Harris/Sullivan blogaloue and my two previous posts and the comments after them.
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Splinter in Eye Syndrome
I haven’t commented on the pope’s Regensburg University speech. I have never liked the guy, and was profoundly disappointed when he was elected pope. I’m a Catholic, so I try to avoid saying negative things about him lest they sound gratuitous. Nevertheless, he represents everything that I find distasteful and absurd in official Catholicism. And
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More on Christian Liberty
If there is one thing I have become sick of hearing is the now-tired argument that people who are religious our spiritually inclined are weak and needy, that they are afraid to be free. Now I'm a Catholic, and it's not easy being one these days. I'll be the first to acknowledge that much of
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Understanding the Backlash
In my reading of so many secular Liberal pundits and blogs I continue to find remarkable how patronizing and tone deaf they are to the concerns and sensibilities of religious believers. If nothing else, it's just politically stupid. I don't have a problem with anybody condemning hatred, intolerance, and the plain nuttiness of the Robertson,
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More on the Puritan Mind
In the Anglo-American experience there were three bloody civil wars–the one in England led by Cromwell, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War. Each was a phase in a long-term struggle of the Puritan “moderns” to defeat the Tory “premoderns.” I have come to think of the American Revolution as the Puritans' finishing a