Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 279

Reform or Revolution

Cambridge historian Eamon Duffy has a new book out, and this article highlights his approach. Duffy has avoided propaganda and worked with primary documentation to show that the Protestant Reformation in England was more along the lines of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in Red China. A whole complex and beautiful culture was systematically and brutally destroyed. [...]

Reductionism, Ridicule and Red Herrings

I usually avoid reading the atheists because I find (not surprisingly) that they don’t have much to say. Not believing in anything gives one precious little to write about. All that is left is to attack what other people believe in. The atheists are rather like the ultimate Protestant. What belief they have is derived [...]

The Erosion of Freedom

On this feast day of St Thomas More we do well to remember that the Tudor Revolution in England (sometimes given the euphemistic term: Reformation) was not immediately violent and catastrophic. It began with Henry VIII and his counsellors deciding that the church courts should not deal with cases of civil law. In the Middle [...]

Old Monk on the Way

The doctrines and moral laws, the rules and regulations? They are the map, not the journey.

Pride, Prejudice and Rational Religion

In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice Caroline says to Mr Bingley, I should like balls infinitely better, if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the [...]

Atheist Former Fundies

I have spent some time this afternoon reading the combox for Leah Libresco’s last post for the atheist portal. The comments from the atheists are very interesting for several reasons. Firstly, it is amazing how many of the commenters speak rather aggressively about religion being “irrational”. We must believe that this is their honest and [...]

Suicide or Catholicism?

Evelyn Waugh has been mis quoted as saying, “There are only two choices: suicide or Catholicism.” I believe what he really said was in a letter responding to a friend who asked why, if the Christian faith was supposed to make you happy, Waugh was such a miserable character. Waugh replied, “If it weren’t for [...]

Welcome to Leah

From the Atheist portal to the Catholic portal comes blogger Leah Libresco. The intellectual atheist explains her reasons for stepping into the Tiber here. I look forward to reading some more smart Catholic blogging. One of the abiding problems in American Christianity is a kind of anti-intellectualism that reigns supreme in some quarters. “Ya’ll don’t [...]

The Eternal Mass

Am I getting older or is the news getting worse? All around the world seems to be disintegrating. What was considered immorality by everyone is now championed as good and progressive. The Christian church in America — Catholics included–seem to be swept along by the crass materialism, commercial mentality and all the complacency and desires [...]

C of E — Church of Everybody?

One of the jokes when I was a member of the Church of England was that “C of E” stood for: “Church of Everybody”. It was an ambiguous joke–on the one hand poking the C of E for being such a rubbery kind of institution that it stood for nothing and therefore fell for anything. [...]