As we discussed last time, Suggestion is one of the great weapons in the enemy’s toolbox for harming those who struggle with doubt. The devil has no actual truth on his side in making the case that God does not exist or is evil or uncaring, so he has to
As we discussed last time, doubt is rooted, not in truth but in suggestion. To be sure, the devil baits the hook with a piece of truth, but it’s always a half-truth. Indeed, he often quotes the word of God itself (as he did with Jesus), but leaves out the full picture.
I struggle now and then with doubt and am amazed at folk who tell me—truly for all I can tell—that they never have doubts. Throughout my Christian life I have been assailed with doubts about all sorts of things, up to and including the existence and goodness of God. It’s
How does one begin a regular or semi-regular column? It’s a puzzle that’s vexed writers since the invention of the newspaper. The great advantage that old timer columnists have is that everybody’s been reading them so long that you feel like you know them. You recognize their turns of phrase,
Show me a person who cannot distinguish cleverness from wisdom, or good brain from a good heart and I will show you somebody who is a fool. These words to live by returned to mind a few weeks back when I read a complaint piece on Apocalypto by a scholar specializing in
Recently, Rod Dreher posed a question about what a Catholic is to do when he thinks a Magisterial authority has made some error of fact concerning, say, science, politics, or economics. Dreher’s post concerns the question of whether some bishops are mistaken to think morning-after pills are abortifacient, but it could just
Till further notice, I’m going to stick with the daring theory that New Orleans was destroyed by a hurricane. That bothers some of the holier folk I know, who are quite certain they discern in recent events the fate of sinners in the hands of an angry God. In the
It is often objected that the gospels contain variations, that every variation is a “contradiction”, and that such “contradictions” mean the gospels are historically worthless. Some people even say Jesus never existed. Here’s the thing: eyewitnesses of extraordinary events tend to give varying accounts of those events. When not engaged
Here in Seattle, the Land at the End of History, all you have to do to induce complete credulity in the average Seattleite is preface whatever quack junk you are palming off on our highly sophisticated urban post-Christian crowd with “the Ancient Chinese art of” [insert quack junk]. After all,
As Cal Thomas has thoughtfully illustrated yet again, people deny any and all connection between themselves and the object of their hostility. They rename sauerkraut “liberty cabbage” and French fries “freedom fries” and they try to pretend that Muslims and Christians “don’t worship the same God”. Protestants like Thomas are free (if
Here’s something you don’t read every day. The Middle East Media Research Institute reports the following: Media Uproar Following Egyptian Mufti’s Fatwa on Companions of the Prophet Muhammad Being Blessed by Drinking His Urine An uproar in the Egyptian media followed the recent publication of a book by Egyptian Mufti
During Easter Season, and especially as we recall the Passion of Jesus, it is easy to remember that we tread in a minefield. For instance, a culture that lives in the shadow of the Holocaust feels a twinge of uneasiness when we read in Matthew 27:25: And all the people
Much bustle here at Inside Catholic last week, as well as on my blog. Lots of people wanted to know why I was so adamant about defending the UK bishops’ suggestion that Muslim students be given a prayer room and other accommodations. To reiterate: I’m not particularly adamant about defending the bishops’ dubious
So here’s a story in the Daily Mail about some UK Catholic bishops who decided it’s a good idea to provide space for Muslim students to observe their prayer rituals in Catholic schools. The bishops also suggested “[e]xisting toilet facilities might be adapted to accommodate individual ritual cleansing which is sometimes part
One of the most volatile passages in the New Testament is the moment at which Jesus looks at some of his Jewish audience and declares point blank, “You are of your father, the devil” (John 8:44). Not unnaturally, this sounds pretty ugly to modern ears and, particularly in the shadow
Note to the reader: This mysterious letter, through some quirk in the cosmic aether, found its way on to an Internet Christian bulletin board shortly after a poster logged on briefly to post various badly spelled obscenities as proof of his ability to “think for himself” and pull the noses
I have always been joyously afflicted with wanderlust. In It’s a Wonderful Life, when George Bailey tells Uncle Billy that the three most exciting sounds in the world are anchor chains, plane motors, and train whistles, something stirs in my marrow. I have always felt the romance of travel, even when I’m
I got a little envelope in the mail today. No name on the return address. Just “P.O. Box 17453, Louisville KY 40217.” My name and address were dot-matrix printed on a label. The envelope had a regular 32 cent stamp on it. Opening it, I found two postcard-sized cards. The
One of the peculiar ironies I have noticed over the years has been the divergent ways in which the notions of evolution have, er, evolved in the minds of Catholics and some of the more anti-Catholic folks among our Fundamentalist brothers. One of the distinctions between Catholics and Bible Christians
The other day I was talking with a friend about the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-31). She had been trying to understand the Church’s teaching about prayer to the dead (and coming to believe it was true) when she hit a difficulty. Her Dake’s Commentary said of this
I have a lot of sympathy for New Age folks. Not sympathy with their ideas (if one can use such a strong word as “idea” for the quicksilver emotionalism and muddy mixture of suburban folk religion that is the New Age), but sympathy with the elemental movements of the heart
Recently, Pope Benedict XVI asked Muslim leaders to do something that many in the West have been clamoring for Muslim leaders to do: make it very publicly clear that the kind of violence so prominent in the Islamic world is to be condemned and repudiated. One person to respond to
Recently the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life put out a quiz in which atheists did better than Christians in answering some basic questions about such matters as “Which Bible figure is most closely associated with leading the exodus from Egypt?” (In case you were wondering, the correct answer
The Creed concludes with, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.” The life of the world to come began for each of us on the day we were baptized. It comes with a bit more fullness each and every time
The creed tells us, “We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.” This clause emphasizes a teaching of the ancient Church that would later be denied by the rise of anabaptism. Anabaptism taught that infant baptism was a waste of time and said that you must be baptized as
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