On Tea Parties and Such

Full disclosure: I’ve not attended any of these “tea parties” (as the Santelli-rant-derived designation goes), and in terms of my voter registration, I’m independent, pretty much most of the time fed up with either of the primary parties which are represented on my various ballots. I was a sporadic voter out of college, but have [...]

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More Orthodox Than Thou (A Protestant Convert to Orthodoxy Rant)

At the risk of engaging the passions–not a good thing to do at any time, let alone Great and Holy Lent–I want to take on this notion going around the Protestant-convert-to-Orthodoxy blogosphere in which Protestant converts to Orthodoxy are criticizing fellow Protestant converts to Orthodoxy about things such converts are doing that just aren’t Orthodox [...]

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Why Social Justice is Not a Category of Ecclesial Thought

It’s an intentionally provocative title, so let me clarify what is and isn’t meant. But first let me say that this post will not explore in any great detail the relationship between the Church and the state, though such talk will nonetheless be inescapable. I will not here entertain acceptance of or defend against various [...]

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Progressive Politics, Chiliasm and the Kingdom

Via Tripp, comes a post on Utopia, progressive politics and the Kingdom. The angst exhibited in the post is fairly typical of what one finds among those evangelicals who are anxious to remain faithful to their core Gospel convictions, but, for varying motivations, want to embrace a more socially activist way of living. And that’s [...]

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The Roe Effect: A Sociopolitical Hypothesis

Way back when (which is to say, about a year or more ago), Opinion Journal, the online editorial presence of WSJ, hypothesized on the effect of legalized abortion on the political arena. Using statistics from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, and their own political research, they theorized that abortion is killing potential liberal voters. Larry Eastland [...]

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The Law Always, Necessarily and Inescapably Legislates Morality

[Note: the date stamp on this post has been changed from the original, so as to keep it on the main page and further enable the argument that has been taking place in the comments.] There’s one thing we separate in our public consciousness here in the U. S. (and industrialized West more generally): the [...]

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On the Separation of Church and State

My parish priest, Fr. Patrick Reardon, makes some important points with regard to the First Amendment and freedom of the press and of the free exercise of religion: It is important to examine carefully the precise wording of this very precisely worded affirmation. It does not say that religion and the press shall be prohibited [...]

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Ronald Reagan: Farewell Address

Excerpts from Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address: This is the 34th time I’ll speak to you from the Oval Office and the last. We’ve been together eight years now, and soon it’ll be time for me to go. But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I’ve been saving for a [...]

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Ronald Reagan: Second Inaugural Address

Excerpts from Ronald Reagan’s Second Inaugural Address: My fellow citizens, our nation is poised for greatness. We must do what we know is right, and do it with all our might. Let history say of us: “These were golden years–when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, and America reached for her [...]

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Ronald Reagan: First Inaugural Address

Excerpts from Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address: In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, [...]

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