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I just had a mock interview for my application to the Dept of Humanities and Augustinian Traditions at Villanova University. It helped a lot to focus me on the sorts of questions I need to prepare good answers for and my need to immerse myself in Catholic Social Thought before my interview on the 8th of January, so I can show concretely my ability to be an informed outsider of Catholicism in their dept.

As a result, I will be discontinuing blogging for awhile.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Holidays.

dlw

Just like the rest of us, only at a much greater scale and subject to the judgment of the public.

Josh Marshall describes Thomas Jefferson’s implicit appeal to civil disobedience in his justification of his own use of the presidential powers to go against the Constitution.

It is not that the president is above the law or that he can set aside laws, it is that the president may have a moral authority or obligation to break the law in the interests of the Republic itself — subject to submitting himself for punishment for breaking its laws, even in its own defense. Jefferson’s argument was very much one of executive self-sacrifice rather than prerogative.

The long and short of it is that the prez has no right to conceal his violations of the law from the public or to berate the press for revealing them to the public or to claim that he must be, because we’re at war, above censure for his actions. However, it is up to us to decide how serious the actions of not getting approval for wiretapping were and what the appropriate punishment should be. And the fact of the matter is that we really can’t do that, as of yet, without more information.

dlw

My Brother in Christ, Matt, from A Pilgrim’s Digression, shared with me about his experience of posting over at a political conservative blog, Crazy Politico(CP), and his feelings that even though the blogger seemed to appreciate what he had to say and reposted part of it, nothing much came of it as the general blog tenor of decrying the bias of the “liberal” Mainstream Media continued unabated.

The issue is can blogs be more than echo-boxes? I posted over at CP my own view, influenced by Paul Musgrave, that much of “political” blogging is entertainment-oriented. Blogs are where we rehearse old debates and get exhorted on the sorts of things we already believe in. Shortly after, the CP blogger shared with me his view that blogs are safe places to vent.

I consider my blog my main venue for ministry. I am glad that a long-time internet friend and frequent commenter here, Ryokan, recently became a Christian, leaving his agnostic skepticism behind. I’d like to think that my blogging was a part of the witness that made this change possible.

I have recently been caught up in an extensive dialogue with steve andresen of touchy subjects. As a result, he’s blessed me with some interesting restatements of my views and challenged me to restate why I am a Christian.

I can see why this sort of dialogue is not popular. It’s hard reading and writing and costly. I tend to repeat myself some, but trying to authentially react to persistent questions is difficult but I think it is worthwhile. My better posts come from interaction with other’s writing and honest dialogues or when I persistently rework how to communicate my ideas on topics, after extensive feedback from a variety of standpoints.

dlw

Absolutely hilarious!

Kudos a Carlos a Haysoos Politicas, for this well written article , “Bad Faith in the Land of Narnia”, by Jewish cultural and film critic, Sheerly Avni. The interesting thing about it is the author describes how her faith in God was nurtured very much by the writings of C.S. Lewis against his parents’ “pessimism: God doesn’t exist, and He’s out to get us anyway“. While she didn’t become a Christian, she avoided becoming an atheist, in part due to the concept of God in the writing of Lewis. She describes for us her informed outsider’s view of why the Narnia books are so special.

Narnian Christianity operates on a symbolic, imaginative level. Religious fundamentalists of all creeds insist on literal interpretations of ancient texts. But creative readings of those same texts offer us a moral blueprint for making our way in the world, and that alone should make the film’s content an antidote to the ugly anti-intellectualism of fundamentalist Christianity.

Read more

I found from Google News, an article by IrelandOnline about how WTO protestors are “fighting battles” with police in Hong Kong. The violence part stems from how the protestors have been trying to break through police lines to storm the ongoing WTO meetings.

The protestors hit police with bamboo sticks and used a metal barrier to ram a line of officers armed with riot shields. The police fought back with clubs, pepper spray and water cannons that shot water mixed with a chemical that burned the skin and eyes.

Read more

There’s an interesting article in the BBC that goes into details on how the opposition candidate to Russian President Vladimir Putin is being harrassed regularly. The real problem is not the anti-Orange-Revolution maneuvers being used by Putin, but rather that the public is disillusioned with Democracy. Too many people are too poor and they’re willing to accept the stability provided by Putin than risk change. It doesn’t help that Viktor Yuschenko’s gov’t has fallen short seriously this past year. Read more

There is a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong right now. It sounds like things are not going well and that there are quite a few, 4500, vehement protestors from all over the region. Apparently one of the problems is that the US tends to make food donations that help out our farmers but easily upset the delicate balance of local agricultural trade.

A CNN reporter asked protestors from a wide variety of backgrounds why they were protesting. Here are a few of the responses. Read more

My friend Steve Knight clued me into the following McClarenesque post of Steve Bush,

Progressive evangelicals just don’t seem to fit in anywhere. We find the political and theological conservatism of U.S. evangelicalism too confining. But we’re too evangelical to be anything else.

Read more

I had the blessing of when I was in Sweden meeting the Christian author, Ruth Valerio. She is an English-woman, a convert from Judaism(albeit from a somewhat secularized family) and has written a book, L is for Lifestyle. The book offers some practical ways Christians can hold to the statement made in 1980 by the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization and the World Evangelical Fellowship (now called the World Evangelical Alliance) called ‘An Evangelical Commitment to Simple Lifestyle’.

Valerio’s books are well written. She’s a very good communicator and very charismatic. Read more

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