Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 292

Blessed vs. Successful

If only the Kansas City Royals would have hit it out of the park as often as our pastor does in his sermons, week after week.  On All Saints’ Sunday, with the text of the Beatitudes, he talked about how we confuse being “blessed” with being “successful,” and how the Bible gives us a very [Read More...]

Election results

I now know a Senator–Ben Sasse won in Nebraska!  The biggest surprise so far is in my home state of Virginia, where Republican Ed Gillespie–who no one thought had a chance–is leading incumbent Democrat Mark Warner, though the election is too close to call as of this moment.  Right now, 10:00 p.m., the Republicans are [Read More...]

Confessions of a liberal parent

The Washington Post has a touching and rather humorous piece on the following theme:  “I’m a diehard, bleeding-heart liberal. And it’s ruining my parenting.” From Darlena Cunha, I’m a die-hard liberal. It ruined my parenting. – The Washington Post: I’m a diehard, bleeding-heart liberal. And it’s ruining my parenting. My intentions are good. I want [Read More...]

Tappett brother dies

I have a thesis that anything can be made interesting, if it is just presented in the right way.  I’m not all that interested in cars, but I love Car Talk, NPR’s auto repair call in show, in which “Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers” solve mechanical mysteries in a most hilarious and interesting way. [Read More...]

Election Day

Today we Americans are privileged to participate in what has been called the “civic sacrament” of voting. Elections for public office are not new, of course.  They were staples of the Greek democracy and the Roman republic.  The papacy has always been an elected position.  In medieval Europe, the Emperor was elected, the main difference [Read More...]

Pastors defying the IRS by politicking from the pulpit

More and more pastors are endorsing particular candidates from the pulpit, purposefully defying the IRS law for non-profit tax-exempt organizations.  So far the IRS is ignoring the violations, but the pastors are goading the agency by sending it tapes of their sermons. Is this a violation of Romans 13?  Also, under Romans 13, shouldn’t churches [Read More...]

Stephen Colbert on Common Core math

The Washington Post had a feature story about the difficulties parents are having in helping their children with their homework, thanks to the new approach to math required by the Common Core educational reforms.  Instead of teaching children to learn to calculate by applying math facts like the multiplication table, the new curriculum rejects memorizatio [Read More...]

All Saints and All Sinners

Some may say, why are you Lutherans making a big deal out of All Saints’ Day? I thought Luther was against all of that cult of the saints stuff. Well, Reformation Christians have a different take on what a saint is. In Roman Catholicism, a person of exceptional piety and good works might be a [Read More...]

Discovery of how to keep young people in the church

A new study has discovered what is being called the “holy grail” for keeping teenagers in the church when they become adults:  Parents.   If their parents talked about their faith at home, showed that their faith is important to them, and were active in church, 82% of their children became similarly religious as adults.  The [Read More...]

Reaching pro-life Democrat women

For all of the Democratic campaign rhetoric accusing pro-lifers of conducting a “war on women,” it turns out that 29% of Democrats are pro-life.  Now the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony List is doing some creative campaigning to enlist pro-life Democrat women to persuade them to vote their convictions. From Melinda Henneberger, Antiabortion lobby is making [Read More...]