Faith, the Ascension, and the Meaning of Life

I recently added two posts at Called to Communion. The first is about the nature of faith in relation to reason, and about a significant difference between Catholic and Protestant conceptions of faith in relation to the Church. The second is a reflection on the relevance of the Ascension to the meaning of life and finding true happiness.

Happy Pentecost, the birthday of the Church!

Humanity validated or obliterated?

Michael Spencer (aka iMonk) has become my favorite Baptist blogger. That's because he is ecumenical in the catholic sense, seeking to mine the gold of all the Christian traditions, without being a relativist or soft-pedaling the truth. And he's best when analyzing his own tradition in a "Let's have a family talk" sort of way, because he's humble enough to see what others don't let themselves see, and courageous enough to know it must be said. He's the Evangelicals' gadfly, as Socrates was to the Athenians, but with a twist of Thomas Merton meets Wendell Berry.

His latest post, titled "On Being Too God-Centered", is a perfect example, and well worth reading. The underlying problem he is addressing is closely related to the three philosophical assumptions I addressed in "The Gospel and the Paradox of Glory."

Angels trapped in stinkin' flesh

A recent post titled "Off-Duty Megachurches" on Christianity Today's blog, led me to Joe Johnson's Mega Churches gallery (at the link, click on "projects", and then click on "Mega Churches"). The photos are, in a way, spiritually nauseating. So I wrote some thoughts on the underlying problem, here.

True Ecumenicism: A Photo

Eighty-year old Catholic priest Fr. Norman Weslin, flanked and supported by two Baptist pastors, shortly before he was arrested. (Notre Dame University, Friday, May 15, 2009)

Click on the photo for a larger image.

Podcast: Faith and Reason

In the latest podcast at Called to Communion, Tim Troutman and I talk about falsifiability, fideism, presuppositionalism and other questions pertaining to the relation of faith and reason.

To stream it, go here. To download the mp3, right-click here, and select "save as".

I wrote more on the falsifiability of the doctrine of Christ's resurrection here.

The Relation of Man's Two Ends to Church and State

I posted an argument here that the following three claims are incompatible with each other: the beatific vision was natural to unfallen man, the Church and State should be separate, and the State did not result from the Fall. We can retain the latter two claims only by denying the first claim. And this has soteriological implications regarding the disagreement between Protestants and the Catholic Church over the doctrines of the Fall, original sin, and ultimately, justification.

Christians are Called to Communion

Called to Communion

Wilson vs. Hitchens: A Catholic Perspective

I wrote some thoughts here on the Wilson vs. Hitchens debate narrated in the forthcoming film titled Collision.

Archbishop Burke on being a Catholic patriot in America

The Most Reverend Raymond Leo Burke, who is the Archbishop-Emeritus of Saint Louis, and is also the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, delivered the keynote address this morning at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. In this address he explained what it means to live out the virtue of patriotism, as a Catholic in present-day America. The address can be found here. I highly recommend it.

H/T: Whispers