Stephen K. Ray's Blog, page 64
January 26, 2023
Pope on Homosexuality
POPE FRANCIS: DECRIMINALIZE HOMOSEXUALITY
Pope Francis in an interview with the Associated Press condemned laws that criminalize homosexuality and sodomy. “Being homosexual is not a crime. It’s not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin. Fine, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime,” Francis said. The pope also said that bishops who support anti-sodomy laws must undergo a process of “conversion.” READ
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January 25, 2023
Roots and Metaphysics – The Loss of Transcendence
In 1982 Janet and I were renting a chalet in Switzerland with our two oldest kids then 6 and 2. We lived in the Alps for almost a year while studying at L’Abri with Dr. Francis Schaeffer.
During that time another student and I decided to hitchhike to Italy to see all the history and culture, art and beauty. His name was Ray Hines.
He wrote this parable of our loss of the transcendence. Our modern world has stopped looking beyond what they can with their physical eyes. Very interesting meditation.
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January 20, 2023
Islam and Communism main persecutors of Christians in 2022
Persecution of Christians “has grown exponentially “ in the last 30 years. Communism and Islam are no friends to Christianity and Christians — in fact they are enemies
JANUARY 19, 2023 ZENIT STAFFPERSECUTED CHRISTIANSCommunist totalitarianism and Islamic fundamentalism are yet another year the main causes of persecution of Christians in the world.It’s a persecution that “has grown exponentially” over the last 30 years. It’s the moment of the Christian NGO Puertas Abiertas [Open Doors], which reports annually on the persecution of Christians in the world. This year’s Report was published on January 18 and offers very alarming data:
5,621 Christians were killed worldwide because of their faith in 2022.4,542 Christians were arrested because of their faith over the last 12 months2,110 Christian churches were attacked during the past year.360 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination because of their faith. Now only in the first 50 countries, 312 million Christians are suffering at present very high or extreme levels of persecution.In 1993, Christians faced a high to extreme level of persecution in 40 countries. In 2023 this figure has almost doubled to 76 countries.Two out of five Christians are persecuted in Asia, being the most hostile Continent to Christians because of Communism (in North Korea, China, Laos and Vietnam), Islam and Hindu nationalism.One of every 15 Christians is persecuted in Ibero-America, where Communism (Cuba and Nicaragua) has become a growing cause of that persecution.One of every five Christians is persecuted in Africa, where theprincipal cause of persecution is Islam.
China’s dictatorship is forging a global alliance to redefine human rights
Open Doors has alerted that China’s Communist dictatorship “is forging a global alliance of nations that intend to redefine human rights, alienating them from civil rights and religious liberties. Dissident voices, such as those of Christians, are persecuted as ‘troublemakers’ or even ‘terrorists.’ The Christian NGO points out that “China has taken more drastic measures against Christians, introducing new and radical rules on the use of the Internet by the churches.”
For the whole insightful news article, click here.
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January 19, 2023
The Crying Baby Jesus
Each year we sing the popular Christmas carol Away in the Manger which in verse two says,
“The cattle are lowing
The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes.”
Here is a delightful icon of Jesus crying on the laps of Mary and Joseph. He has just skinned his knee, which is enough to cause any little boy to cry. He was a real boy, God yes, but he came down to share our humanity, our skinned knees, our mosquito bites, our hunger and thirst.
We too often suspect that the Holy Family walked three feet off the ground, but we are told in Scripture that even Jesus was made like us in all things but without sin (Heb 2:17; 4:15). We fervently defend his divinity, but we must remember his humanity as well.
We don’t see images like this one very often and I in particular are very fond of it.
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January 18, 2023
Living the Sexy Life
Today is Thursday, and I’m giving a talk on the Good News Marriage Cruise, sponsored by Corporate Travel and Ave Maria Radio. My talk is entitled “Men, Marriage, Sex & Heaven.”
It’s a talk that you can always hear a pin drop because Catholic speakers don’t generally talk about things like this AND in the way I’m going to be explaining it.
So, in honor of the talk today I am again posting an an article from Crisis Magazine which I love. I hope you enjoy it too!
OUR SEXY LIFEby Peter J. Leithart
My wife and I got married in the autumn after we graduated from college. We were both virgins. Our first son was born ten months later, and for the next fifteen years we had a child every two years or so.
They were more spaced out at the end, and by the time the dust settled in the early 2000s, we had ten children, six boys and four girls. For over two decades, my wife was either pregnant or taking care of a newborn or toddler—then she became a midwife and started taking care of other pregnant women and their newborns.
We started our lives as parents in the early ’80s of the last century, and our youngest leaves for college later this month. After almost forty years of raising kids, we’re going to be (more or less) empty nesters.
Neither my wife nor I played the field before we got married. Our alma mater, Hillsdale College, didn’t host sex fairs or encourage promiscuous experimentations (it still doesn’t). Neither of us has had an affair. By today’s standards, we’ve shared a boring, unsexy life.
That doesn’t bother us, because we’re convinced today’s standards don’t know what sex really is. We’re told to think sex is the experience of ecstatic passion when we lose ourselves in the intensity of our own, and our lover’s, pleasure. The orgasm subsides, we cuddle and talk (or not), and the sex is over.
That couldn’t be more wrong. No act is over when it’s over. As Maurice Blondel insisted, our actions escape our grasp, stretching beyond our purposes and desires toward completions we neither intended nor wanted.
Theoretically, we can distinguish acts and consequences, but in lived life they’re always inextricably joined. And that means following through on the surplus of our action is part of the action itself. We like it when the surplus is a plus: We enjoy being rewarded for results we didn’t anticipate.
We don’t like it when the results are dire. I run a stop sign while texting at the wheel, and I’m rightly held responsible for the damage I cause to another driver and his car. “I didn’t mean to do that” is meaningful, yet, whatever my intent, the action is still “reckless driving” and perhaps “vehicular homicide.” We finish our actions only when we own up to their consequences. Reward and cost are two facets of the same principle.
Our impulse to decouple sex from its aftermath is one of the deeply inhuman distortions caused by the abortion regime and the contraceptive mentality that infuses it. Technology and readily-available “solutions” bewitch us into believing we can engage in the most intimately personal human act without having to complete the act in an ongoing personal relation.
We’ve convinced ourselves we can perform the act that keeps the human species alive without having to worry about keeping the human species alive—even while deliberately intending not to keep the human species alive. Sex has become abortive even when it doesn’t end with an abortion.
We’ve forgotten what sex is for. Yes, it’s for pleasure, and the pleasure is a good gift from our Father. Yes, it’s the most complete expression of the self-gift for which our spousal bodies were designed. But we’ve forgotten that, as Audrey Pollnow has recently argued, the possibility of conception is part of the “pleasure, as well as the excitement” of sex.
Sex acts that evade this fuller pleasure “are illusory, sentimental, and warping: They involve the experience of doing the babymaking act without actually doing it.” To shore up its collapsing legal clout, the abortion establishment has found it necessary to demonize the babymaking potential of sex.
Kat Rosenfield recently reported at UnHerd that abortion activists, doctors, and the media have conspired to give us “wall-to-wall coverage of the danger of pregnancy and childbirth.” The message is that “no woman in her right mind would ever carry a pregnancy to term unless she had some sort of death wish.” The abortion establishment rubbishes the sacrifices of giving life, while it mourns the lost freedom to take it.
Last December, our whole family gathered outside Atlanta for our youngest son’s wedding. As I wrestled and chased our grandchildren around the Airbnb, watched our sons play chess in a haze of cigar smoke, ate and drank, talked with children, grandchildren, and in-laws, I was overwhelmed by the sheer abundance that surrounded us.
Forty years ago, it was only my wife and me. Now there are an additional thirty-one human beings who would not exist but for us. The proliferation goes beyond mere numbers. It’s a proliferation of projects, plans, aspirations, achievements, gifts, and talents; of dinners, parties, songs; of teaching and learning, jokes and laughter, conversations and debates, worship and prayers, losses and tears.
My wife and I have given the world an attorney, a couple of teachers, more than one writer, a game designer, a musician and a couple of filmmakers, an executive assistant who runs a nonprofit, a social worker, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, boys and girls with plans and aspirations that will come to fruition long after my wife and I are gone. Lord willing, Leitharts will keep proliferating for a thousand generations.
This is what the Bible means by “blessing,” and it all began with my wife and me keeping our promise to be “only for you.” We’ve lived the sexy life God created sex for.
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January 17, 2023
Passing Cuba, kinda sad
Janet and I a were invited as speakers on Corporate Travel‘s Good News Marriage Cruise through the Caribbean. It’s been a marvelous time with 400 great Catholics who are here to enrich their marriages and fall more in love with Jesus in the church. And to have a great time!
Today I checked the maps and realized that we were passing within a few miles of Cuba. It is kind of sad because of the political situation there and the Communist regime that is isolated and imprisoned these poor folks from the rest of the world. It is I nconceivable that there are many Americans trying to bring communism to our great country. Unbelievable!
I’d almost like to stop there and visit, but I know the ship won’t do that and I don’t know the legalities of such a visit. But it is sad, looking over the water and seeing the hills and coastline of Cuba, which has been in the news so much over the last decades. I feel sorry for the many folks that endure that oppressive regime with no hope of escape. Makes me all the more grateful for the freedoms that we have in America. But I warn people that we better use our freedoms now before we lose them.
Tomorrow we land in Jamaica, and then later to Haiti. My talk will be entitled Man, Marriage, Sex in Heaven.”
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January 16, 2023
Where Was King David Buried? What is the City of David?
Aged King David in the City of DavidScripture tells us that King David was buried in the City of David. Since Scripture refers to both Jerusalem and Bethlehem as “the City of David” some say David was buried in Jerusalem, other suggest he was buried in Bethlehem.
In Scripture there are two cities called “The City of David.” The Old Testament (OT) uses the phrase 49 times – each time referring to Jerusalem, never to Bethlehem. The New Testament (NT) uses the phrase twice in Luke’s Gospel and each time it refers to Bethlehem.1
So, what is “The City of David” – and where were King David and his successors buried?
In my documentary David and Solomon: Expanding the Kingdom (produced by Ignatius Press) I assert that David was buried in Jerusalem, actually in the area called Silwan today. However, some have suggested by some that David was buried in Bethlehem where he was born and raised. This is not because of any evidence; rather, it is because of a confusion caused by the phrase “city of David” being used of Bethlehem by Luke. And also for other reasons that arose subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD (details to follow).
So, loving a good biblical mystery, I decided to dig a bit (no pun intended) and see what I could find.
To read the whole article, click here.
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January 15, 2023
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