Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 405

Two kinds of funerals

Funerals being on my mind lately, I offer you an essay I wrote that was published in  Table Talk.  It is entitled “A Tale of Two Funerals.”A Tale of Two Funerals by Gene Edward Veith   A young man I knew died in a tragic traffic accident. His death was utterably sad. At his funeral, his [...]

Women are main breadwinners in 40% of households

A new Pew study has found that women are the main breadwinners in 40% of American households.  Much of this is due to the rise in single-mothers, but an increasing number of wives just earn more than their husbands.  Read the details after the jump and contemplate the cultural implications. From the Associated Press: A [...]

Making the arrangements

My heart isn’t in blogging today.  I’m certainly not in the mood to complain about the culture, worry about politics, or pick theological arguments.  Death gives a different kind of perspective, an eternal perspective, that, for all its hurt, is  healthy for me to consider. With my mother, my brother, and my sister, we have [...]

100,000 Christians per year die for their faith

Statistics about the number of Christian martyrs today: A top Vatican official has said around 100,000 Christians are killed every year for reasons linked to their faith and pointed to the Middle East, Africa and Asia as the biggest problem areas. Monsignor Silvano Maria Tomasi was quoted by Vatican radio on Tuesday as saying that [...]

God in the whirlwind–and a personal interruption

Well, in our travels, we went through Moore, seeing the devastation that was truly awful–in the sense of both “terrible” and in the older sense of “awe-inspiring.”   A whole swathe of the city, marking the twister’s path, just obliterated, with houses, businesses, and other structures reduced to unrecognizable piles of debris.  Coming back, we went [...]

The American energy bonanza

The BBC reports that new information about American oil and gas supplies, thanks to our vast shale deposits and the new ability to extract energy from them, will shake up the world’s economy. From BBC News – US shale oil supply shock shifts global power balance: A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is [...]

The God whom Christians worship

Yesterday was Trinity Sunday, in which we reflect on the One true God who consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  That God is a unity of distinct persons means that we can accurately say that He is love, love being at the very essence of God, since love–even human [...]

Memorials

Have a happy, but thoughtful Memorial Day.  I know it’s mainly become just the beginning of the summer holidays, the first bratwurst of summer (in the words of Those Darned Accordians).  Enjoy that part of it, but the holiday was started as a commemoration of the war dead.  It’s been extended for many people as [...]

More on the salvation of non-believers

In trying to explain Pope Francis’s statement about atheists that we blogged about, a Vatican spokesman, Father Thomas Rosica wrote a piece entitled Explanatory Note on the Meaning of ‘Salvation’ in Francis’ Daily Homily of May 22:  Reflections on Atheists, Christians, and Who Will Be Saved.  He nuanced what the pope said, but he didn’t [...]

Pope says atheists can be saved

Pope Francis preached a homily in which he pretty much said that atheists too can do good and therefore can go to heaven.  (Notice the assumption that salvation is by good works and not by faith, which is being presented as not really necessary.)  The pope’s words are after the jump, along with some other [...]