Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 300
September 30, 2014
Whatever happened to the National Council of Churches?
The ecumenical organization of liberal mainline Protestants (plus the Orthodox, which I never understood) known as the National Council of Churches used to be enormously influential. But now it has dwindled to insignificance. Jacob Lupner explains what happened and how the NCC is trying to rise again. From Jacob Lupner, The rise and fall and [Read More...]
[image error]
[image error]
Secret Service fiasco gets worse
You’ve probably heard about the man who jumped the fence around the White House, ran up to the building, and actually opened the unlocked, unguarded door and went inside. Well, now it turns out that it was worse than that. He ran all through the first floor, overpowering a guard, running through the 80-foot-long East [Read More...]
Watching porn on taxpayer time
A senior Environmental Protection Agency official has been caught spending as much as six hours a day watching pornography on government computers. This has sparked a bill in Congress that would forbid that sort of thing–which is also hurting productivity in private companies–in government agencies. From Al Kamen, Making it plain on porn? – The [Read More...]
September 29, 2014
The Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer
Nathan Busenitz gives a vivid account of the martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer, who was greatly influenced by Luther and who is the literary genius who gave us the Book of Common Prayer, the English rendition of the liturgy that have shaped the language of Lutheran liturgies as well. From Nathan Busenitz, The Death of Thomas [Read More...]
ISIL-style beheadings come to America
A recent Muslim convert, angry because he had been fired, beheaded a 54-year-old woman and attacked another woman until a manager with a gun shot him (though not fatally). The killer, Alton Nolen, had jihadist slogans and ISIL beheading videos on his FaceBook page. The reason he was fired was reportedly because of an argument [Read More...]
No-hitter leads into the playoffs
The climax of the Washington Nationals’ league-leading season came Sunday on the last game of the regular schedule when Jordan Zimmermann threw a no-hitter against the Miami Marlins. The Nationals’ hand for the playoffs includes five aces in the starting rotation. And yet, the playoffs and the World Series are often full of surprises. So [Read More...]
September 26, 2014
“First it was your turn, and now it is our turn”
The Pope made an interesting comment to visiting Jewish leaders. He compared the atrocities being committed against Christians in parts of the Middle East and the world’s overall silence on the subject to the way Jews were treated in the run-up to World War II. The pope, who sees us in the beginning stages of [Read More...]
Automatic birth control?
Ruth Marcus cites a “thought experiment” put forward in a new book: Imagine that all women in the United States, upon becoming sexually active, were automatically fitted with an intrauterine device or other form of long-acting birth control. This scenario sounds creepy, with its undertones of Big Brother and eugenics; framed this way, it would [Read More...]
Singles’ nation
For the first time since records were kept, a majority of American adults are single. From Single Americans become majority for first time — RT USA: More people in the United States are apparently leaving wedding rings sitting in jewelry stores, as new data shows a majority of American adults are now single. Specifically, about [Read More...]
September 25, 2014
Vocation and Epistemology
More and more Christians are discovering, or re-discovering, the doctrine of vocation, and the richness of that teaching means that vocation can illuminate countless dimensions of life. Now the noted Christian philosopher John Stackhouse has written a book entitled Need to Know: Vocation as the Heart of Christian Epistemology (that last word referring to the [Read More...]
