Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 248
May 20, 2015
“God is in every syllable”
Popular author James Reston, Jr., has written a book entitled Luther’s Fortress: Martin Luther and His Reformation Under Siege, about Luther’s time in Wartburg Castle, when he was in hiding from the Emperor’s death sentence. Here he began his translation of the Bible. It took him a mere 10 weeks to translate the New Testament. [Read More...]
Why the biker gangs fought each other
A meeting called to discuss motorcycle safety, held in a shopping mall restaurant in Waco, Texas, degenerated into an armed battle between biker gangs, leaving 9 dead and 170 (!) arrested. Why? Apparently it was precipitated by an argument over a parking space, but the feud goes back two years ago when the Cossacks [Read More...]
ISIS “serves the best lattes and cappucinos around”
A propaganda booklet being circulated by ISIS promises great food, stylish technology, and cosmopolitan diversity. The author, a British citizen named Abu Rumaysah al-Britani, then looks forward to the day when ISIS will takes over London, Paris, and Washington, D. C., “because not only will we spill your blood, but we will also demolish your [Read More...]
May 19, 2015
The World Beyond Your Head
Matthew Crawford, a philosopher who has found wisdom in being a motorcycle mechanic, is the author of an excellent book on vocation entitled Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. He now has another book that shows how the Enlightenment has given us a very distorted view of the self, one [Read More...]
The financial problems of just living together
There are strong moral reasons why couples shouldn’t just live together without being married. There are also strong psychological reasons why this is not a good idea. (See also this.) The Washington Post‘s financial advice columnist, Michelle Singletary, points out that there are also strong financial reasons not to, that sharing housing expenses, bank accounts, [Read More...]
A warm-blooded fish
As we were taught in Biology, mammals and birds are warm-blooded; reptiles and fish are cold-blooded. But now scientists have discovered that the opah, a deep-water fish, is warm-blooded! From Warm-blooded fish traps its own heat in the deep – BBC News: The large and colourful opah has become the first known “warm-blooded” fish, as [Read More...]
May 18, 2015
How a contemporary sees contemporary worship
Robert Burns prayed for the power “To see ourselves as others see us!” (To a Louse). So I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings here. But it is surely helpful for a church trying to be contemporary to see how actual contemporaries are responding to their efforts. Matt Walsh, a young guy of the sort [Read More...]
Everybody’s a populist
Just about everybody in politics is claiming to be a “populist” these days–leftwinger Elizabeth Warren, rightwinger Ted Cruz, establishment icon Hillary Clinton, the Christian right’s Mike Huckabee, Occupy Wallstreeters, Tea Partiers, and on and on. Rutgers history professor David Greenberg points out that the term once had a very specific meaning, relating to the farmer/labor [Read More...]
War on terrorism updates
There have been several developments in the on going and possibly never ending war on terrorism: U.S. Special forces made an incursion into Syria and killed an important ISIS leader. The surviving Boston Marathon bomber was sentenced to death. Famed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has published a story claiming that what we have been told [Read More...]
May 15, 2015
Christian “decline” is just Nominals becoming Nones
The headlines about the Pew Report, including at this blog, say that Christianity is declining in America. But if you look closer, says Christianity Today’s Ed Stetzer, the data shows that the decline is in “nominal Christians”–those in name only–who are becoming open about their unbelief and calling themselves “Nones.” The number of “convictional” Christians–those [Read More...]
