Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 166

The Pope and Divorce

Here is an article I dashed off for Aleteia last evening on the Pope’s personal phone call to a divorced woman. I commented in the article how very complicated this matter is in practice. It’s even more complicated than I had room to set out in the article. The Catholic teaching on this matter is [Read More...]

Denise Longenecker Inge

Yesterday I wept bitterly at the news that my little sister Denise had died. Just about a year ago we got news that her body had been attacked by a horrible sarcoma. The cancer was in her abdomen. They couldn’t operate or offer radiotherapy. Denise went through chemotherapy–so much that they couldn’t give her any [Read More...]

Why Myth Matters

Here is my latest article for Intercollegiate Review on why people in the street thing myth is just a stupid fairy tale, but going on to show how important myth is to the modern mind. One of the most tiresome misconceptions of the cynic in the street is his idea of myth. He uses the [Read More...]

Death Be Not Proud

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee   Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,   For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,   Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.   From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,          5 Much pleasure, then from thee, much more [Read More...]

Today Life is Dead

Life today is dead for the source of life is dead, but because Life cannot die the source of Life cannot die This was the fatal mistake of the Lord of Death. He thought that he had such power that he could kill even Life itself. The fool. This is the foolishness and the blindness [Read More...]

Emotion as Ethics or Screaming Makes it Right

Here is my latest article for The Imaginative Conservative in which I explain the modern trend of saying that something is right or wrong simply by feeling that it is right or wrong. In other words, if you like it or not. Emotivists contend that words which suggest an objective morality like “good”, “bad”, “right”, [Read More...]

The Superhero Myth that Really Happened

Here is my Good Friday piece for Aleteia in which theories of the atonement are explained and how comic book heroes help us understand the gospel An earlier view of the death of Christ combines two understandings of who Jesus and what his death accomplishes. First is the idea that Jesus pays a ransom to [Read More...]

Pope Pelosi Washes Feet

Devout Catholic Nancy Pelosi washed some feet at an Episcopal cathedral in San Francisco yesterday. Go here for a snapshot. Thanks to the Holy Father being creative with the liturgy, here’s what the ceremony of foot washing has become: a photo op for just about anyone to make a political statement. “Here, are the cameras [Read More...]

The Pope in the Attic?

In this insulting and ignorant piece in The Atlantic Paul Elie goes through the same sad litany of the mainstream media–setting up a clash not only between Popes Benedict and Francis but now also between John Paul II and John XXIII. You know the whole schtick: John XXIII and Francis are radical reformers–jolly people people who [Read More...]

Jesus Died to Save You – What Does THAT Mean???

You see the signs beside the highway blazoned “Jesus Saves”. You hear the religious slogans from Catholics and Protestants, “Jesus died to save you from your sins.” or “Jesus blood was shed to wash away your sins.” I’m sympathetic when I hear modern secularists say with frustration, “What on earth does that mean??!! How can the [Read More...]