Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 286

Great Ones

T.S.Eliot was a hero of mine ever since I read his biography in our World Book Encyclopedia when I was a kid. Here was an American who went to England and stayed there. I was intrigued. Funny how early in life something opens up. There’s a desire or a calling of some sort. I was [...]

The Jesus Revolution

Jesus’ parables connect with the Old Testament and transform them from the inside out. So the prophet Isaiah says that the people of Israel are “God’s vineyard.” Jesus comes along and uses the same imagery saying that his father is the vinedresser and furthermore–he (Jesus) is the vine. In other words, Jesus is the source [...]

More on the Vasnetsov Madonna

First of all, it is worth considering the location and size of this image of the Madonna. It is a monumental fresco in the apse of St Vladimir’s Cathedral in Kiev, Russia. The image itself combines the stylized forms and poses of the classical iconography of the Mother of God, but uses a more naturalistic [...]

Russian Madonna

The Motorcycle Ride

Tuesday I took off on the motorcycle by myself up into the foothills of South Carolina. Here’s how it works. I head out on a road I know well, in the direction of the mountains. Then I take a turn down a country road I have never been to. I don’t know where it leads, [...]

Woman and Serpent – Take 2

Some years ago I wrote a book with a former Bob Jones University classmate–David Gustafson. Mary-A Catholic Evangelical Debate is now out of print, but later this year I will be re-publishing it as an e-book and traditional book. This is the chapter in which we discuss the Immaculate Conception. The debate is in depth [...]

Immaculate Deception?

I had been on the path to becoming a Catholic for nearly twenty years. Coming from an Evangelical, Protestant background I had become an Anglican priest, learned to pray the rosary, understood and accepted the Catholic understanding of the Church, the sacraments and the priesthood. I spent a lot of time in Catholic Benedictine monasteries [...]

Do Catholics Have a Personal Relationship With Jesus?

In the combox a reader asks, Father, regarding your reference to the “personal relationship with Jesus” that evangelicals emphasize … what is that? I hear that a lot in Catholic circles now also … but I have never seen it explained. How does one recognize that experience or how does it feel? The evangelicals seem [...]

A Medieval Madonna Caught My Eye

Twenty five years ago a medieval Madonna caught my eye and captured my heart. Notre Dame de la Brune is a restored Romanesque image of the Blessed  Mother. It is in the North aisle of the Abbey church of St Philibert in Tournus, France. This church is a fantastic example of Burgundian Romanesque. You can find [...]

How a Bob Jones Grad Came to Love the Rosary

Being brought up in a fundamentalist home,  our family were not exactly “anti-Catholic” but we assumed that Catholics needed to “get saved”. Certainly I had never seen a set of rosary beads, and didn’t know what they were for. I had never been into a Catholic church, but was told by my pastors that “Catholics [...]