Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 120
November 7, 2016
Australia notes: Guy Fawkes Day
On Saturday night, here in Australia, fireworks started going off everywhere. It dawned on my daughter the lines “Remember, remember/the Fifth of November.” It was Guy Fawkes day! The old boy is burned in effigy and explosions are set off in commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot, in which a band of Catholic terrorists packed the basement [Read More...]
November 4, 2016
“See the place where they laid Him”
We blogged about the excavation of what is believed to be the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. When the marble cladding was removed over the place where the body would have been laid, there was a layer of debris. Under that was another marble covering. The researchers removed [Read More...]
India, Africa, Indonesia, and other Lutheran enclaves
Most people associate Lutheranism with Germany, Scandinavia, and the United States. Germany indeed is number one (11,787,811), but number two is Ethiopia (7,886,595) and number three is Tanzania (6,531,336). Indonesia is fifth (6,046,321) and India is seven (4,042,543). There are nine countries with more Lutherans than the United States (3,765,362). Followed by more African countries [Read More...]
Ivan the Not-So-Terrible
Ivan the Terrible is known for killing his own son and for slaughtering vast numbers of his countrymen, including the Massacre of Novgorod, where up to 60,000 men, women, and children were brutally killed. But his reputation is being rehabilitated in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. You can tell a lot about Russia based on whose statues are [Read More...]
November 3, 2016
Blogging from Down Under
We’re on our way to Australia to visit our grandchildren, daughter, and son-in-law (a new professor at the Lutheran seminary in Adelaide). We’ll be there for a month, coming back on December 2. The blog will continue. (We’ve got to talk about the election on November 8–I’ve cast an absentee ballot–and other crises that will [Read More...]
How can God love the world?
We often speak of God’s presence in vocation, of His providential “providing” for His creation, of His care for non-believers as well as believers, and other manifestations of God’s love for the world. But how is that possible? The world is fallen. God is holy. Holiness cannot abide sin. So how is it that God [Read More...]
Liberalism of the left & liberalism of the right
The well-regarded ethicist Stanley Hauerwas reviews a new book by John Milibank, of “radical orthodoxy” fame. Entitled The Politics of Virtue, Milibank argues that both today’s liberals and conservatives are essentially liberals. Both sides are fixated on “freedom,” whether sexual freedom or economic freedom, to the exclusion of other things needed for a good society (such [Read More...]
November 2, 2016
Why the Pope likes Luther
At the joint Catholic/Lutheran service in Sweden, commemorating Reformation Day, Pope Francis was said to have “issued some of the most positive language ever used by a pope to describe Martin Luther and his beliefs.” The Pope said that the doctrine of justification “expresses the essence of human existence before God.” The Reformation “helped give greater [Read More...]
FBI investigating Trump & Russia
In addition to investigating Hillary Clinton’s illegal e-mail arrangements, the FBI has been investigating possible ties between Donald Trump and his campaign with Russia. At issue are the hacked Democratic communications that have been traced to Russia, financial connections between former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russia, Russia as the source of the Wikileak [Read More...]
Our nation’s capital votes for physician-assisted suicide
The City Council of the District of Columbia has passed a measure to allow physician-assisted suicide. It needs another vote and the mayor’s signature to become law. But Ryan T. Anderson has written an eloquent critique of the bill, emphasizing what euthanasia does to the medical profession and to the society that approves of it. [Read More...]
