In a Sunday morning class, we were watching a Fr. Robert Barron video in which he talked about the modern tendency to trivialize Jesus as a very smart and very nice guy with a good philosophy of life and lots of interesting stories. The fact is, he said, that Jesus was an unusual and disturbing […]
Author: Darryl Williams
Freedom of, not from Religion
This week there is a report of the beheading of four teenage Christians in Iraq because of their refusal to convert to Islam. I am willing to concede that Islam may be, or may at least become, a religion of peace if it is stripped of and separated from any political or state power, but that is […]
Jesus…in Context
In the last few weeks I have read “Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters,” by theologian and scholar N. T. Wright, “Killing Jesus” by Commentator Bill O’Reilly and historian Martin Dugard, and a short reflection on the tenth day of Lent, “Why Was the Cross […]
Defining God Down, So He Can Be Denied
Revised, with apologies, December 17th, 2013. The Experience of God by Eastern Orthodox theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart is a critique of both the faulty logic of modern atheists and of the easy targets provided them by simplistic understandings and explanations of God by people of faith. To whet your appetite for Hart’s books, […]
Commitment to Social Spending: More Than a Tithe
Sometimes it helps to provide some historical context for currently observed phenomena. The chart below shows total federal, state, and local social benefit spending, as a percent of GDP, for the United States since 1960, the 25th anniversary of Social Security and five years before Medicare and Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” which featured “Guns […]
Catechism of the Catholic Church
I first read this 688 page document, paying particular attention to the scripture references, while I was a student at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary eight or ten years ago. It is great educational and devotional reading for any Christian, Catholic or not, if taken in fifteen or twenty page bite size pieces at a time. […]
In One Thing Only
Listening to yesterday’s Gospel reading from Luke 10 about Jesus sending the Seventy out and instructing them to “rejoice in one thing only,” I was reminded that it was the text for the one and only prepared sermon I ever delivered. Near the end of my three years of Lutheran seminary, I took Professor Tom […]
Sargent Shriver, “A Good Man”
I just finished reading A Good Man, Mark K. Shriver’s highly personal biography of his dad, Sargent Shriver. Probably few people under the age of forty have heard of Mr. Shriver, but a few essential facts are well documented in Wikipedia, and there is no need for me to try to reword them. Robert Sargent […]
The Burdens of Wealth and Covetousness
The meaning of “wealthy” has changed significantly over the centuries. In Biblical times, Abraham was declared wealthy because of his “flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female servants, camels and donkeys.” His son, Isaac, “had possessions of flocks and herds, and a great household, so that the Philistines envied him.” Isaac’s son, Jacob, […]
The Pope and the Poor
From an AP news story about Tuesday’s public appearance of Pope Francis: “Francis said the role of the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics is to open his arms and protect all of humanity, but “especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important, those whom Matthew lists in the final judgment on love: […]