 |
|
When I arrived in Kraków for the 2016 World Youth Day, I was pretty exhausted, having left Los Angeles some 15 hours earlier and having had to change planes in Munich.
But I was enthused as I approached my first appointment right in the heart of the Old City. Through the good ministrations of George Weigel, the world’s leading expert on John Paul II, I was one of a group of bishops and priests invited to spend time with the original youth group of Fr. Karol Wojtyła.
|
|
At the prompting of some of my younger colleagues at Word on Fire, I spent time during a recent vacation getting caught up on the History Channel show Vikings.
My friends had told me that Vikings, curiously, is the most religious show on television. They were right.
Don’t get me wrong. There is enough violence, pillaging, plundering, sword-fighting, and political intrigue to satisfy the most macho viewers; but Vikings is also drenched with religion — and for that I applaud Michael Hirst, its sole writer and director.
|
|
I would like to continue reflecting on Fleming Rutledge’s extraordinary book The Crucifixion, which I consider one of the most insightful theological books of the decade.
In a previous article, I drew attention to Rutledge’s bracing insistence on the awfulness and shame of the crucifixion. In the ancient world, there was no punishment more painful, terrifying, and de-humanizing than the cross.
It is not simply that Jesus died or even that he was put to death by corrupt people; it was that he endured the death reserved only for the lowest and most despised.
In the light of the resurrection, the first Christians looked back on this horrific event and saw in it something commensurate with the weight of sin. Somehow, on that instrument of torture and humiliation, the Son of God was addressing what could not be adequately addressed in any other way; he was paying the requisite price.
|
|
Fleming Rutledge’s The Crucifixion is one of the most stimulating and thought-provoking books of theology that I have read in the past 10 years.
Both an academic and a well-regarded preacher in the Episcopal tradition, Rutledge has an extraordinary knack of cutting to the heart of the matter. Her book on the central reality of the Christian faith is supremely illuminating, a delight for the inquiring mind — and man, will it ever preach.
|
|
There is, in many quarters, increasing concern about the hyper-charged political correctness that has gripped our campuses and other forums of public conversation.
Even great works of literature and philosophy — from Huckleberry Finn and Heart of Darkness to, believe it or not, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason — are now regularly accompanied by “trigger warnings” that alert prospective readers to the racism, sexism, homophobia, or classism contained therein.
|
|
There is, in many quarters, increasing concern about the hyper-charged political correctness that has gripped our campuses and other forums of public conversation.
Even great works of literature and philosophy — from Huckleberry Finn and Heart of Darkness to, believe it or not, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason — are now regularly accompanied by “trigger warnings” that alert prospective readers to the racism, sexism, homophobia, or classism contained therein.
|
|
I had the enormous privilege recently of addressing English-speaking priests from around the world who had gathered in Rome for a special Jubilee celebration of the Year of Mercy. I met Fathers from the States, Canada, Australia, Latvia, Ghana, Cameroon, Ireland, Nigeria, and many other countries.
During the Communion at the Mass which followed my talk, I saw hundreds of priests in their albs coming to the altar to receive the Lord, and I thought of the passage from the Book of Revelation concerning the white-robed army gathered around the throne of the Lamb.
As a basis for my presentation, I used the wonderful story from the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel concerning Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well. From this encounter, I derived four principles regarding the divine mercy.
|
|
With his latest film, Last Days in the Desert, Rodrigo Garcia has accomplished something truly remarkable.
He has taken a portion of the life of the single most compelling person who has ever lived and turned it into a colossally boring movie.
|
|
A recent issue of Time Magazine features a fascinating and deeply troubling article on the prevalence of pornography in our culture.
The focus of the piece is on the generation of young men now coming of age, the first generation who grew up with unlimited access to hardcore pornography on the Internet. The statistics on this score are absolutely startling.
|
|
Reliable sources have informed me that for the millennial generation, Bill Nye is a figure of great importance, due to his widely-watched program from the 1990s called Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Evidently, he taught a large swath of American youth the fundamentals of experimental science and became for them a sort of paragon of reason. Well, I’ll take their word for it.
But judging from a recent video in which Bill Nye discussed the relation between science and philosophy, I can only tell you that he sure is not the “philosophy guy.”
