Even the Devils Believe

Today is the Commemoration of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For me as an Augustinian, this is sort of a captivating feast, deeply connected to a number of themes that were a part of my oblate formation. There’s this tremendous interplay between the sense that our own sin pierced Jesus’ heart (at Vespers: [...]

In the last four months, my state has exonerated three former death row inmates — that’s not a commutation of their sentences but outright exonerations. The state could no longer make a meaningful case against them in court. Charges against the third, Bo Jones, will be dropped today. The case has fallen apart [...]

LutherPunk offers some thoughts on the announcement of full communion between the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
Here’s the thing: I don’t see the point. Unless we are re-incorporating ourselves into another a new structure that actually does away with the distinctions of Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist, whatever, then there is still [...]

I just finished reading Reinhold Niebuhr’s classic work, Moral Man & Immoral Society. I’m not quite sure how to react to it, though I’ve relied on some of Niebuhr’s insights fairly heavily over the years. More than anything, Niebuhr tries in this book to problematize the quest for perfect justice within any political [...]

Much is being made in the blogosphere of Pope Benedict’s comments at an ecumenical prayer service in New York a few days ago:
At a Roman Catholic church in Manhattan, the pope later warned other Christian leaders against “so-called prophetic actions” that conflict with traditional views of the Bible, a reference to the debate over Scripture [...]

Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center has penned a very thought-provoking response to the controversy surrounding Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I strongly recommend you take a look at the whole thing, but here are a few critical paragraphs:
One article I saw last week said that Jeremiah Wright was saying nothing different [...]

I’ve been debating whether to post anything about the Eliot Spitzer debacle which has dominated the news. I’ve been all the more conflicted because of my upcoming post on judging the actions and motives of politicians. (Expect that post after Easter, as I won’t be blogging about politics or public theology during Holy Week.)
Thankfully, [...]

I try to hide this secret, but I really kind of want to become Barbara Brown Taylor when I grow up. I would much rather just have her preaching voice pop into my head than do all the hard work myself — she gets me with every sermon I read or hear or watch. [...]

There’s a really useful post here looking at the work of Kathryn Tanner in relation to Rowan Williams. The post and comments are an interesting discussion.
The central concern here is that Tanner espouses a theology of giving “from abundance”, whereas Williams suggests giving necessarily entails painful sacrifice and self-limiting. The crux of the [...]

There is an interesting discussion at this Dominican blog about whether or not one can or should wash off the ashes after they have been imposed on Ash Wednesday. The concern is whether the Gospel reading, which talks about washing one’s face and not moaning about fasting, mandates or at least suggests washing off [...]