Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 262

Faith or Works?

One of the famous choices between Catholics and Protestants is the relationship between faith and works. Many Protestants hear Catholics talk about “earning years off purgatory” or hear them talking about doing certain actions in order to earn a “plenary indulgence” and they assume that Catholics believe in salvation by works. It’s an easy conclusion [...]

Leap of Faith: The Substance and the Evidence

As a fundamentalist boy I had to learn my Bible verses from the King James Bible. One I remember clearly is Hebrews 11.1 “For faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” For some reason I always loved the way that rolled off the tongue. It had a [...]

More TV Lookalikes

It seems I am not the only one to spot the uncanny resemblance of our political heroes to famous TV personalities of yesteryear. Has anyone noticed any other TV-politician lookalikes? Doesn’t Nancy Pelosi look like Edith Bunker?

Has anyone else noticed the remarkable resemblance of the...

Has anyone else noticed the remarkable resemblance of the VP debaters to classic American sit com characters Eddie Munster and Mr Ed the talking horse?

Paganism and Christianity

Do similarities between pagan religions and Christianity dis prove the Christian claims? To understand the relationship between pagan religions and Christianity it is important to understand the Catholic idea of the ‘development of doctrine.’ This was first set out by fifth century theologian Vincent of Lerins.In this excerpt from his writings he explains how truth develops [...]

Mantilla the Hon on Children’s Church Music

Guest blogger Mantilla Amontillado is the founder of Veritas Vestments. She holds a degree in Ecclesiastical Haberdashery from Salamanca University. She has done the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella three times on horseback and is engaged to the famous matador, Senor Augusto Torquemada. Hey hon! I sorry I not been talking for so long, but [...]

An Underwater Trip to Heaven

from the combox: I returned to the church 4 years ago after 30 years of non-beleif, I could never quite make the move from agnostic to atheist because I couldn’t completely ignore some experiences I’d had! One in particular stuck in my mind, I was doing a deep diving scuba course at over 80 metres [...]

Neurosurgeon Goes to Heaven

London’s Daily Telegraph reports an article from a top neurosurgeon who says he went to heaven during and near death experience. Heaven was full of pink fluffy clouds and shimmering winged beings and lovely music and there was a pretty lady too who went with him on his out of body journey. The Telegraph also [...]

Old Monk on Condemning Others

You cannot condemn others until you know everything about them. Since you will never know everything about them you can never condemn them.

Finding Faith

The religious life requires faith, but what is ‘faith’? One of the greatest misunderstandings among believers and non-believers alike is the concept of ‘faith’. Let’s rattle through the misconceptions before we try to say what ‘faith’ really is. First is the idea that faith is ‘blind’. The non believers often blame believers for believing something [...]