Dwight Longenecker's Blog, page 86

Why Are The “Nones” Leaving Religion?

Everybody’s buzzing about this new survey which charts the decline of institutionalized religion in the USA. The statement which summarizes religious trends today is this: Catholics dropped both in market share and in real numbers. Despite their high retention rate for people reared in the faith, they have a low conversion rate. Today, Cooperman said, [Read More...]

How Does God Answer Prayer?

A reader writes to ask if it is wrong to pray to God that his kid does well in his really important baseball game. “Doesn’t God have better things to worry about than me asking for my boy to do well at the baseball game?” What’s the answer? It’s complicated. One the one hand I [Read More...]

It’s the ACTS of the Apostles, People!

One of the things which gets me charged up during the Easter season are all the readings from the Acts of the Apostles. We take this marvelous fifth book of the New Testament for granted, but consider how important it is that the book records the ACTS of the apostles. Notice that it is not “The [Read More...]

Relativism and the Antichrist

My essay this week at Imaginative Conservative explains why “the dictatorship of relativism” is  not a catchphrase, but a reality. The most terrifying aspect to this truth is that the indifferent will cry out for the domination of the superman. Most dictatorships are welcomed for what they offer. In the lack of objective truth and [Read More...]

When Preaching Seems Pointless

Quite often when the decadence of our society and the breakdown of marriage is discussed good Catholic folks will ask, “Father, why don’t we hear more preaching against this from the pulpit?” Hmmm. From the reports I hear the preaching in Catholic churches is often pretty awful. Either it is unprepared, unlearned, inarticulate, unorthodox or [Read More...]

Blessed Virgin Mary – Higher Than Any Created Being?

Catholic praise God that the Blessed Virgin Mary is higher than any other created being. Higher than the angels even. That’s why one of her titles is Queen of Angels But why is she exalted above all others? Because she was unique. No other created being was so intimate with God that she bore his [Read More...]

From the Pious Puppy Dog…

…Good Lord Deliver Us I hope you will excuse me from venting, but has anybody else noticed the rise of what I call “the pious puppy dog”? The pious puppy dog is the kind of Christian who seems to be nothing but fluffy sweetness and light and happiness and goodness all the time. 24-7. He [Read More...]

The Satanic Coloring Book for Kids?

Last week a book arrived on my desk which is truly disturbing. It’s called The Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities.  Produced by The Satanic Temple it is an eight page booklet featuring typical kid’s coloring book with activities like a maze, word search, puzzles and codes. What interests me most about The Satanic Children’s Big Book of [Read More...]

Five Reasons Why “Back to the Basics” Churches Stumble

There’s always a tendency in religion to want to get back to the original–to return to the primitive form of religion–to get back to the basics. Big mistake. While Catholics groups sometimes fall into this trap it is one of the underlying foundations of the Protestant movement to go in for Primitivism and Restorationism. Primitivism is [Read More...]

Why Religious People Are Worse Than Darth Vader

The teacher in my screenwriting class said, “To create a believable villain you have to understand why he thinks he’s good.” In other words, nobody gets up in the morning deciding to be just as nasty, mean and murderous as possible. No. even Darth Vader thinks he’s a good guy, and to give George Lucas [Read More...]