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Tag: religion
Christian apologists, wake up! (part two)
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Second in a two-part series on a Pew Study about why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity. Part one looked at, first, the relationship between religion and science and, second, the dismissive “psychologizing” of beliefs. In this second part, Bishop Barron examines two more reasons young people offered in the study for “walking away from Christianity.” His analysis of the source of the problem, included in part one, is reprinted here in the first two paragraphs.
For the past 50 years or so, Christian thinkers have largely abandoned the art of apologetics and have failed (here I offer a j’accuse to many in the Catholic universities) to resource the riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition in order to hold off critics of the faith. I don’t blame the avatars of secularism for actively attempting to debunk Christianity; that’s their job, after all.
Theologians and catechists: wake up!
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First in a two-part series on a Pew Study about why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity.
After perusing the latest Pew Study on why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity, I confess that I just sighed in exasperation. I don’t doubt for a moment the sincerity of those who responded to the survey, but the reasons they offer for abandoning Christianity are just so uncompelling.
That is to say, any theologian, apologist, or evangelist worth his salt should be able easily to answer them. And this led me (hence the sigh) to the conclusion that “we have met the enemy and it is us.”
Easter is not a question mark
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Excavating my desk recently, I found the program notes from a Tallis Scholars concert my wife and I had attended a few months ago.
The Tallis Scholars are a marvelous a capella ensemble, but most of their music that night was rather too minimalist for my tastes. In any event, the author of the program notes described Arvo Pärt’s I am the true vine and its “qualities of stasis and timelessness,” as reminiscent of what “former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has described as ‘silently waiting on the truth, pure sitting and breathing in the presence of the question mark’.”
Changes in Harvard’s crest
Which put me in mind of an old joke that used to circulate in the editorial offices of First Things. Harvard University’s crest, it seems, used to read Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae [Truth for Christ and the Church].
Christ and the Church were jettisoned over a hundred years ago; the crest now reads, simply, Veritas.
Our hearts break for Paris
When I heard about the terrorist bombings in Paris, my heart broke.
I visited Paris many years ago, and it is such a special city. It saddened me to hear that so many innocent people were killed and injured, apparently by three teams of Islamic State terrorists.
Although the French people had a reputation for being somewhat aloof, we found them to be friendly — especially when we spoke some French. Once we made the attempt to communicate with them, the Parisians usually spoke English with us.
Damage to historic places
But it was not only the loss of lives and the injuries that upset me. It was also the damage the terrorists might have caused to the city of Paris itself.
There are so many historic places in Paris, many of significance to the Catholic Church.
How a Catholic should live is the key issue
To the editor:
I’d like to add a few observations to Fr. Robert Barron’s column, “It doesn’t matter what you believe . . .” (Catholic Herald, December 4 issue). He reports that “88 percent of those surveyed said ‘how a person lives is more important than whether he or she is a Catholic.’”
However, if the respondents had been asked, “How should a Catholic live?” the answers would not have been cavalier at all.
Pew survey looks at religion and politics
Polls and surveys are not infallible. Nor do they define what is true. But they do have their uses.
If they are conducted carefully and without bias, they can offer insights regarding public opinion or perceptions at a given moment in time. Among other things, polls can help us understand the mood of the moment and confirm or question trends of changing opinion.
Among the more respected polling organizations is the Pew Research Center. The center has a particular interest in measuring the role of religion in public life and how those who identify as adherents of a particular religion feel about issues and events.
Teachers are important for a good school year
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The new school year invites us to reflect upon teachers’ importance.
Though they sometimes fall short like other humans, good teachers influence our youth who are the hope of the future. Through their classes pass future lawyers, doctors, reporters, writers, farmers, secretaries, engineers, and other shapers of tomorrow’s world.
Good teachers know and love their subject and their students. Coaches, chaperones, parents, counselors, and others who contribute to the school also teach youth. They often are role models.
We may have memories of teachers who made a difference. Some taught elementary school; others taught junior high, and still others taught high school or college. They often differed, but they had one trait in common. They cared about us, shared the subject that they loved, and helped us to grow. We should remember to thank them.
Hercules, N.T. Wright, and the modern meta-narrative
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On the first day of my recent vacation, I perused N.T. Wright’s latest book, a collection of essays on contemporary issues in light of the Bible.
A point that Wright makes in a number of the articles is that modernity and Christianity propose fundamentally different meta-narratives in regard to the meaning and trajectory of history.
The emergence of modernity
Modernity — at least in its Western form– is predicated on the assumption that history came to its climax in the mid- to late-18th century, with the definitive victory of empirical science in the epistemological arena and liberal democracy in the political arena.
Basic to this telling of the story is that modernity emerged victorious after a long twilight struggle against the forces of obscurantism and tyranny. The matrix for these negative states of affairs was none other than the Christian religion, which enforced a blind dogmatism on the one hand and an oppressive political arrangement on the other.
Bill Maher doesn’t understand faith
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I don’t know what possesses me to watch Real Time With Bill Maher, for Maher is, without a doubt, the most annoying anti-religionist on the scene today.
Though his show is purportedly about politics, it almost invariably includes some attack on religion, especially Christianity. Even during a recent interview with former President Jimmy Carter, whom Maher very much admires, the host managed to get in a sharp attack on Carter’s faith.
Recently, his program included a brief conversation with Ralph Reed, the articulate gentleman who used to run the Christian Coalition and who is now a lobbyist and activist on behalf of faith-related causes.
For the first three or four minutes, Reed and Maher discussed the social science concerning children raised in stable versus unstable families. Reed was scoring points in favor of the traditional understanding of marriage.