Even the Devils Believe

Musings of an independent catholic priest

Archive for November, 2005

Christmas shopping

Chris T. on Nov 29th 2005

If you’re having trouble figuring out what to buy a family member or friend who has everything, check out this site (found via BoingBoing), which allows you to buy AK-47s, rocket launchers, and tanks that will be donated to blacksmiths in Sierra Leone as raw material for farm implements and other necessities. It’s an [...]

Read Full Post »

Biblical literacy

Chris T. on Nov 28th 2005

In the comments to Maggi Dawn’s recent post about sermon preparation, Sarah Dylan Breuer (of Dylan’s Lectionary Blog fame) has a comment that deserves to be its own post. Here’s an excerpt:
I worry sometimes when I see just how little familiarity many incoming seminarians seem to have with the bible. [...] I’ve heard far [...]

Read Full Post »

Thanksgiving weekend and Starbucks

Chris T. on Nov 28th 2005

Sue and I had a great holiday weekend, spending time with her folks in central Illinois. We also went shopping in Chicago (it snowed!), saw friends from Wisconsin, and went to Mass in Urbana (the Antiochean church I’m a part of is too far away for us to go every Sunday—we make it about [...]

Read Full Post »

Arguing like a Christian

Chris T. on Nov 23rd 2005

It’s not often I disagree with anything Maggi Dawn writes, but I find myself pointing in a completely opposite direction from her recent post on “cutting the crap” in theological (and other) discussions.
I can see her point—often, we fail to challenge one another appropriately because we hedge. We want people to like us, [...]

Read Full Post »

How to become catholic in 1000 awkward, unexpected lessons

Chris T. on Nov 22nd 2005

Jeff asked recently if I would talk about how I wound up joining the UCC and becoming an independent catholic seminarian in the same year. So since this blog is still in its infancy, I thought I would talk about my religious history just a bit.
I grew up in the Missouri Synod. This [...]

Read Full Post »

Multilingual fun

Chris T. on Nov 21st 2005

language hat (required reading for language nerds) recently posted a link to Unbound Bible, where you can view four different user-selectable translations of the Bible in parallel. Here’s Matt. 18:22 in English (NASB), Eastern Armenian (!), Czech, and Greek:
Jesus *said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up [...]

Read Full Post »

On youthful sincerity

Chris T. on Nov 17th 2005

Mark Mossa, SJ, who writes the wonderful YOU DUPED ME LORD, has posted a link to one of his past articles for America, “Both Gen-Y and Catholic”. He discusses his experiences as a campus minister at Loyola University in New Orleans, and especially with confronting his own prejudices about conservative college students:
With these students, [...]

Read Full Post »

Jumping in head first

Chris T. on Nov 15th 2005

I’m back!
Some of you may remember I used to write a blog called Progressive Protestant. A lot has changed in the months since I gave up blogging—these hiatuses seem to be a recurrent thing with me—and those things changed my outlook on this medium so radically that I decided to start fresh. Check [...]

Read Full Post »