Christianity, Cycling, and Current Events from Right of Center
Good morning.
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– July 9, 2010
Good morning.
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– July 8, 2010
Throughout Church history, theological controversy has been one of the enduring features. Name any communion or denomination and you will find one which has struggled with this matter. St. Maximus the Confessor was imprisoned, exiled and lost his tongue and compared to many he got off easy. For that matter, I’d be willing to guess that among those reading this very essay, if they are Christian, have themselves had discussions, often perhaps heated, of this sort. As the title indicates, I’m leading towards a question but to start I’m going to preface that with a few remarks.
Two fragments from Scripture are perhaps relevant. (1 Corinthians 13:12) “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” For the second passage, Romans 2 offers that Jesus not men will be the final judge.
We may argue about our view of the theology, Christology, soteriology, or whatever topic, but we all must admit we only see dimly the truths to which we attest. Who is right in these argument? From the second it might be said that these arguments will only be settled at the eschaton.
My question then is why then might we argue? What is the core reason for which we dispute. What is at stake? I’d be very curious to hear a variety of responses to this.
For myself, my answer might be as follows. Trinitarian theology and Christology, the parables and teachings of Jesus, Paul, James and so on are beautiful. They possess symmetry and a poetry have no little impact. Teachings that obscure this beauty … that is problematic. Why? Because it hinders others from seeing it. The core problem is not that you will be judged adversely if you’re a Calvinist and if at the eschaton Calvin’s teaching was fraught with error (and no, please don’t take this as a generic attack on Calvinism, the “if” is important there). The problem might be with Calvinism is whether his teachings obscures or conceals some important part of the Gospel.
Posted in Christian Philosophy, Christianity.
– July 7, 2010
Good morning.
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– July 7, 2010
Good morning.
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– July 6, 2010
From Rajan’s book Fault Lines, I summarize the latter part of the first chapter (sub-titled “A Short History of Housing Credit”). From Rajan, before we embark on this little history:
Easy credit has large, positive, immediate, and widely distributed benefits, whereas the costs all lie in the future. It has a payoff structure that is precisely the one desired by politicians, which is why so many countries have succumbed to its lure. Rich countries have, over time, built institutions such as financial sector regulators and supervisors, which can stand up to politicians and deflect such short term myopia. The problem in the United States this time was that the politicians found a way around these regulatory structures, and eventually public support for housing credit was so widespread that few regulators, if any, dared oppose it.
But much of the profit stemmed from their low cost of financing, deriving from the implicit government guarantee, and this was a critical political vulnerability.
The combination of an activist Congress, government supported private firms hungry for profit, and a weak and pliant regulator proved disastrous.
On average, these entities accounted for 54% of the market across the years, with a high of 70% in 2007. He (Pinto) estimates that in June 2008 the mortgage giants, the FHA, and various other government programs were exposed to about $2.7 trillion in sub-prime and Alt-A loans, approximately 59% of the total loans in those categories. It is very difficult to reach any other conclusion than that this was a market driven largely by government, or government influence money.
Posted in Policy.
– July 5, 2010
A belated Happy Birthday Mr America.
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– July 5, 2010
Good morning.
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– July 2, 2010
We are being fed the line from the Administration and Keynesian/neo-Keynesian economists that what we don’t need now government spending sanity, but more stimulus. So here’s the background and then the question …
A leading if not the primary cause of the current recession is the result of 20 years of government stimulus in the form of the government push for low/middle income housing. Now the difference there is during the last 20 years the government stimulus has been in the form or high risk loans which were then repackaged and sold to large banking establishments and foreign investors. This is to be distinguished from the current stimulus which comes in the form of government giveaways which are underwritten by large banking establishments and foreign.
Posted in Disengenuity, Policy.
– July 1, 2010
Good morning.
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– July 1, 2010
Good morning. Sorry about the dearth of comment responses and evening essays, but I’ve been putting in 13 hour days (+2 hours commuting) and don’t have the time/energy to come through. It should only go through this week.
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– June 30, 2010
Good morning.
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– June 29, 2010
A little personal story … and the outcome I blame on long time commenter, JA aka the Jewish Atheist.
About a month ago, after dinner with my wife and youngest daughter, we stopped in a sporting goods store with an eye to pricing camping equipment. The store didn’t have a good selection of “real” (backwoods, hiking/canoeing) gear but my youngest announced she needed a new swimsuit.
Blam! I was trapped. Time just gets sucked away when two women start shopping. The two of them dived into the suits picking out various ones and trying on a vast array of offerings. So I was left to wander the store. I didn’t find much. An odd or end to help clean the pistol (.22 caliber Ruger Mark III) we use for our weekly range outing. The only other thing I found (and purchased) was an inexpensive Buck folding knife. Which … my eldest daughter then appropriated for herself. Hmmph.
Now, some months ago, JA had recommended a Spyderco “Sharpmaker” for keeping kitchen and other knives sharp. I had taken it to a family gathering some time ago and whiled away some hours gainfully sharpening our hosts cutlery and as a tool it’s worked quite well. Anyhow, having had one knife snatched like that led me to shop for another … and I picked up a book on “whittling” from Amazon (The Little Book of Whittling) after all you can’t do anything without more books.
Seeing that Spyderco made a sharpener so I checked and lo and behold they make knives too, e.g., the Spyderco Tenacious. I got this one. Which was then appropriated by my youngest daughter. In (mock) desperation, I purchased a third which I claimed for myself by calling it a “father’s day” present (specifically this one, Spyderco Dragonfly).
So now we are all spending some quantity of spare time with our new hobby making pieces of wood smaller and trying not to nick our fingers too frequently. I did in fact buy more bandages just last week.
Posted in Daily Life.
– June 28, 2010
Good morning.
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– June 28, 2010
Good morning.
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– June 25, 2010
Well, I’ve started reading Raghuram Rajan’s Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, and have gotten through the overview/introductory chapter and the first chapter as well. Mr Rajan in his analysis of the current recession blames it on what he terms “fault lines” where competing interests and actions of different organization, nations, and other groups, which taken by themselves individually are understandable and rational when they interact at their “boundaries” create phenomena he likens to the fault lines of geology. The first chapters of this book describe the major players and how they contributed to the recession and why what they were doing was rational and in their best interest.
Posted in Book Review.
– June 24, 2010
Good morning.
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– June 24, 2010
And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?” And they discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. (Matthew 21:23-17)
and take quick read of of the story of Jesus encounter with St. Photina Equal to the Apostles (who is known to the Western traditions as the Samaritan woman at the well) The passage is from John 8, ESV here.
Posted in Christian Ethics, Christianity, Politics.
– June 24, 2010
Good morning.
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– June 23, 2010
Seven men have been selected by the President to head a “drilling commission” to investigate and recommend for the future of off-shore drilling. This article piqued my interest. It makes two claims, that these individuals have little to no engineering (scientific?) expertise regarding offshore drilling and that they have a definite bias against drilling, i.e., that the fix is already in by loading it with politicians and environmental activists. Go ahead, skim the linked article. I’ll wait. …. now that you’re back, here’s what I can find on the web so far about these individuals. It might be also noted that the President called this a “bi-partisan” commission. We’ll see how that plays out.
The Two chairmen:
Our five members announced last week.
Posted in Politics.
– June 22, 2010
Posted in Current Events.
– June 22, 2010
Good morning.
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– June 21, 2010
What follows is the essay from which I drew my homily for the oral portion of the final in our late vocations N.T. class. First the two readings are given (cut/pasted from the ESV … take your own translation as needed). Note that the audience to which I was aiming was the class and not a general congregational talk.
Two readings: John 8:2-11
Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
And a second selection Romans 14:
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since she gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
When casting about for a topic for this talk, Fr. Andrew suggested that the theme for this months newsletter was tolerance. So when considering tolerance, the above passages seemed relevant. Why? Webster gives this (one of its definitions anyhow … and the one which applies) as “sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own.” It might be noted there is a modern cultural push to redefine tolerance as celebration and not merely sympathy or indulgence regarding practices differing from our own. Tolerance as discussed below does not go so far as to suggest celebration. What then does the above tell us about tolerance? How do they, if they do, connect? (find the rest below the fold)
Posted in Christian Ethics, Christian Philosophy, Christianity.
– June 19, 2010
Good morning.
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– June 18, 2010
Good morning.
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– June 17, 2010
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