Even the Devils Believe

I’ve been reading a collection of essays by Karl Barth lately (I will continue to blame Ben and Chris for putting yours truly on a path that no doubt leads to spending several years reading this ;-)), and I ran across this quote that I think describes the balancing act all religious people have to [...]

Immigration policy has dominated the news and the blogosphere for the last several weeks, and with good reason. The whole thing was touched off by an editorial written by Roger Cardinal Mahoney, Archbishop of Los Angeles, stating that he would encourage civil disobedience among his priests if a vague law banning all support to [...]

I just upgraded to the latest Wordpress — it looks like the spam prevention feature will work nicely. (After about four months of zero spam, which was a nice change from the Progressive Protestant days, I’ve been getting several a day lately.)
So if you see any hiccups, please let me know. And I [...]

Sr. Mary Hasta wants to hear us witness to the power of God in our lives. Far be it from me to turn down a nun as cool as she is. So here are my answers. I encourage others to post their own answers — they’re good questions.
1) When was [...]

+Wulfila has produced a great bibliography of Independent Catholicism. As one would expect, the Old Catholics are quite well represented, as much of the movement derives from them. Go check it out!

I want to follow up on yesterday’s post on prayer and the Eucharist with a passage Hauerwas quotes from Vincent Donovan’s book about his mission to the Masai, called Christianity Rediscovered. Donovan explains that among the Masai, a handful of grass was shared as a sign of peace, and if such a tuft of [...]

Talmida has an amusing post that’s making the rounds about why men should not be ordained to the priesthood. Go check it out.
I do have to take exception to one of the points, though, which disdains the contribution of sports to Christian formation:
6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is [...]

I have been reading Stanley Hauerwas’ The Peaceable Kingdom, which is a fascinating work despite the fact that it’s exasperating. Reading it keeps me on my toes, as I disagree rather strongly with some of his assumptions about the possibility for very different faith communities to take part in a common conversation.
However, when [...]

Driving by a church in the town where my wife works, I saw a sign the other day that read: “JESUS GRADES ON THE CROSS, NOT ON THE CURVE.”
The implication seems to be that we don’t get points for being more perfect than average — the standard is absolute.
Which I can buy; it’s at the [...]

Frequent commenter John Plummer mentioned to me recently that he has a new book out. I liked the first one, The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement, so much that I don’t feel any shame about plugging this one. It’s called Living Mysteries: a handbook for the independent priest. [...]