I’ve decided to make a very slight change in the way I run this blog. Since this is my personal blog and not primarily a teaching outlet, I will be ceasing my series through the Heidelberg Catechism and focusing much more on interacting with news in the Christian world, with other theological bloggers, and with the texts and arguments I am thinking over in my own intellectual life. In this way, this blog will be becoming much more traditionally a “(we)blog.” I will be announcing very soon a new blog I will be launching with the help of other writers which we will be primarily an educational outlet. In that venue, I will be starting over on the journey through the Heidelberg Catechism with much more substantial posts (more like short catechetical sermons) which will also be audio podcasted.
John and Kate Get a Divorce
John and Kate, the stars of the sensationalist television reality drama “John and Kate Plus Eight,” have announced that they will be getting a divorce.
Maggie Gallagher, a writer I have not until today had the pleasure of reading, has posted a piece on Town Hall which insightfully discusses the changing attitudes toward marriage and divorce in our society (without personally attacking or condemning John and Kate). As Gallagher points out, the idea of commitment has faded into the background in place of the individualistic ideals of happiness, fulfillment, and “love” (which I place in scare-quotes because I do not believe many people define it the way scripture does when it speaks of marital love). Here is an excerpt from this excellent article:
The family generates love like no other, and it is the place we therefore celebrate love, but in its deepest conceptual meaning the family is the place of obligation, of duty, of unchosen relationship. Our friends are the people in our lives only because we love them and chose them. Our children are not ours because we love them; we love them because they are ours.
A wedding is the weak link in the family system — the extraordinary attempt to make biological strangers into closest kin. For me ,every divorce — not just Jon and Kate’s — prompts questions:
Is being a wife merely a role I’ve chosen, a thing I enact so long as it benefits me? Or can I do something else with marriage — import another human being into the essence of my identity — make being a wife something I am, like being a mother, not merely something I do? Is it possible to really become one flesh?
Papal Encyclical to Address Globalization
The Guardian reports that Pope Benedict’s new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (which has already been signed and dated by him), is being held up in translation. In it, the Pope will reportedly be advocating a sort of global governing authority somewhere between the ineffectual United Nations and the more dangerous notion of world government.
Those of us, like myself, who are very curious to read the Pope’s letter, will just have to continue to wait. While I value the Pope’s opinion as a generally astute theologian (though I clearly disagree with him on many things), I have my doubts about the direction Roman Catholic social policy has taken. An interesting article on this point is Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Law: An Unresolved Tension by Thomas Woods. Woods takes the perspective which I myself hold that economics is primarily if not exclusively a descriptive science and that much Christian social teaching has failed to avail itself of those descriptive resources in order to craft wiser policy.
David Virtue on New Anglican Communion
David Virtue, proprietor of Virtue Online (a major outlet for orthodox Anglican news and commentary), comments on a possibility I myself have been curious about. Could we be seeing the beginnings of a schism in Anglicanism? Could we see the radically apostate provinces (ECUSA, Anglican Church of Canada, and increasingly the Church of England) being ousted by the rest of the communion? Could the Archbishop of Canterbury cease to be a significant player in the Anglican world? What does the future hold for Anglicans seeking to stand firm in the faith of the apostles?
Two Stories on Abortion
By Brett Stroud on July 2, 2009
Two interesting stories have appeared in the news recently which should give pause to advocates of elective abortion:
Of course, the issue of abortion centers around one question: is the baby in the womb a living human being? As Greg Koukl has said: If it is not, then no justification of elective abortion is necessary; if it is, then no justification of elective abortion is adequate.
Posted in News and Commentary | Tagged Abortion