Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 153

Patheosi Night Out

Deacon Kandra has a full report with pictures of the Mass and BBQ dinner attended by Patheos bloggers tonight in Charlotte. Go here.

If You Summon Satan…

…don’t be surprised when he turns up. In C.S.Lewis’ final Narnia story The Last Battle  the evil Rishda Tarkaan summons his demonic god Tash. The problem is–Tash turns up to devour him. So it is in our increasingly godless society. In many ways people summon Satan. Then they are surprised when he turns up. This article [Read More...]

Chesterton and the Charming Devil

Tod Worner recounts a Chesterton story here. As a young student Chesterton was friends with a charming, well connected and well off young man. They debated and discussed most everything, and then the conversation went to morality and religion. Suddenly things went cold… But in spite of his intelligence, polish and facility with different topics [Read More...]

Time, Tradition and T.S.Eliot

T.S.Eliot is not only my favorite poet, but one of my favorite people. I like his anti-poet attitude. In an age where the individual poet was meant to be a bohemian dreamer living on a crust of bread in a squalid garret Eliot wore a three piece suit and got a job at a bank. [Read More...]

Closing Churches Closes Faith

Architect Michael Tamara comments here on the closure of historic churches in the Northern cities of the US. His main point is that the churches were built by our ancestors who were much poorer than we are, but who had faith, knew how to work hard, and above all–were willing to make great sacrifices to [Read More...]

Benedict and Therese – Old Man and Princess

Some of my work will start appearing at Catholic Exchange website. Instead of new articles they have asked to publish excerpts from my various books. Here is an excerpt from my book St Benedict and St Therese – The Little Rule and the Little Way. To study two saints together is to perceive three things: [Read More...]

Magic or Miracles?

Here is my latest contribution to ZENIT- on the importance of miracles and why they are different from magic. The Old Testament is rooted in history. The stories are presented as really happening. We can allow that they may have been expanded and exaggerated over the years, but like legends (which are extravagant stories based [Read More...]

Evangelical Catholic Republicans…

…isn’t that a contradiction in terms–kind of like “Military Intelligence” or “Great Britain” I’m kidding. Deacon Greg reports here on some of the up and coming Republican politicians. Holy Deacon links to this article in the WaPo How many voters know that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is a Roman Catholic? Or that Texas Sen. [Read More...]

Fairy Tales Are Dangerous Mr Dawkins!

This smart essay at Imaginative Conservative is framed as a letter to British atheist Richard Dawkins–who criticized fairy tales recently because they aren’t really true… It never ceases to amaze me how a man as smart as Dawkins in science can be as dumb as a rock when it comes to literature and religion. The [Read More...]

Catholic Literary Pilgrimage to England

Next summer Joseph Pearce and I are leading a pilgrimage to England. Here’s the deal: the dates are June 2-11. As we travel Joseph and I will be lecturing on English history, Shakespeare, English martyrs, Chesterton, Eliot, Newman, Hopkins, Lewis, Tolkien and more. We will visit London, Shakespeare’s Globe theater, Tyburn, Walsingham, Ely, Cambridge, Canterbury, [Read More...]