Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 382
October 7, 2013
Madness and death in the nation’s Capital
A man doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire on the National Mall in front of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Though bystanders, quite nobly, tried to put out the fire, the man died of his injuries. As of this writing, no one knows who he was or why he did what [Read More...]
The Obamacare rollout debacle
Obamacare got off to an inauspicious start as the website that people were supposed to use to sign up for health insurance kept malfunctioning–not letting users sign in, throwing up error messages, and crashing users’ computers. To the point that hardly anyone has been able to sign up for the mandated insurance. Are these mere [Read More...]
The playoffs
As far as baseball in concerned, to true fans of the game, this is the best time of year. The playoffs tend to give us some of the best baseball and the most interesting games of the year. This time we have some perennial powerhouses (St. Louis, Atlanta), a recently-developed powerhouse (Los Angeles), sentimental favorites [Read More...]
October 4, 2013
Leaving Catholicism
When we think of Roman Catholicism, many of us think of Dante and St. Thomas Aquinas, an edifice of doctrine and moral teaching, an all-encompassing church grounded in history and a sumptuous liturgy. We non-Catholics may not agree with its theology and practice, but even so the institution demands a measure of respect. But many [Read More...]
“Missional” churches vs. the church’s mission
One of my former pastors, Rev. Lucas Woodford, has published a book entitled Great Commission, Great Confusion, or Great Confession?: The Mission of the Holy Christian Church. It tells the tale of his attempt to be “missional,” buying into all of the church growth principles and techniques, until he discovered what the mission of the [Read More...]
Has Bigfoot been verified?
Researchers are claiming that they have new photographic and physical evidence of the existence of the Sasquatch, a.k.a. Bigfoot. Not only that, they have sequenced Bigfoot’s DNA, which reportedly shows that the creature is a hybrid human. A consistent feature of Bigfoot sightings is that the observer smells an overpowering musky stench. I am experiencing [Read More...]
October 3, 2013
One Way Love
I have had several posts about Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of Billy Graham and pastor of the iconic Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, whose discovery of Luther’s distinction between Law and Gospel has revolutionized his life and his ministry. He has a new book out, arguably his best, that he is calling his manifesto: One Way [Read More...]
Calvinist Predestination vs. Lutheran Predestination
James R. Rogers has written a post for First Things entitled “Credit the Calvinists,” in which he asks why Calvinists are thought of in terms of the doctrine of predestination and not Lutherans, who also believe in predestination. Well, as Mathew Block explains, there is a big difference between the Calvinist view of predestination and [Read More...]
Novelist Tom Clancy dies
Tom Clancy, the author of The Hunt for Red October who basically founded the genre of the high-tech military thriller, died. He was just 66. In Debt of Honor, published in 1994, terrorists fly an airliner into an iconic building in Washington, D.C. (It was Japanese terrorists flying into the Capitol building during the State [Read More...]
October 2, 2013
Is the Pope Catholic?
Pope Francis has done another interview: Pope Francis cranked up his charm offensive on the world outside the Vatican on Tuesday, saying in the second widely shared media interview in two weeks that each person “must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them” and calling efforts to convert people to [Read More...]
