This past November, as part of Australian TV’s “Festival of Dangerous Ideas,” an episode was broadcast from the Sydney Opera House. Peter Hitchens, the lone conservative and Christian amongst a panel and audience of “progressives,” was laughed at, mocked, and pilloried for an hour. At the end of the broadcast, the panelists were asked: “Which of the so-called dangerous ideas …
Vatican: Obama’s Policies Hostile Toward Christianity
The Vatican’s chief justice has asserted what Christians in America have long understood: President Obama’s policies, domestic and foreign, are hostile toward Christianity and Christian civilization. In an interview with Polonia Christiana Magazine, Cardinal Raymond Burke affirmed the all too obvious reality that Obama “promotes anti-life and anti-family policies.” “It is true that the policies of the president of the United …
A Vital, Essential Truth
This morning, in preparation for a day of writing, I reread the journal I kept during a trip to Iraq in 2003. It was quite the adventure–in every conceivable sense of that word.I was struck by my last entry in the journal, written as our team was safely headed home:“According to Hebrews, faith is assurance and conviction. But faithfulness is …
Obama Recovery: Worse than Bush Recession
According to Peter Ferrara in Forbes magazine, “Economically, Barack Obama could very well be America’s worst president ever.” Indeed, under his administration real GDP growth has actually been less than half as much as the worst of any president in the last 60 years. “In other words,” says Ferrara, “even if you doubled actual GDP growth under President Obama, it would …
Thomas Chalmers and the Recovery of the Parish
The great Scottish pastor, social reformer, educator, author, and scientist Thomas Chalmers was born on March 17, 1780 at Anstruther on the Fife coast. His father was a prosperous businessman in the town and Thomas grew up as the sixth in a large family of fourteen children—he had eight brothers and five sisters. Showing early signs of prodigy, at the …
My Favorite Infidel: H.L. Mencken
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” “Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.” “There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.” “It is the misfortune of humanity that its history is chiefly written by third‑rate men.” “A good politician is quite …
Sum Ergo Zoom
Sum Ergo Zoom, the endurance sports team of Parish Pres, the Chalmers Fund, and the King’s Meadow Study Center, not only has a web page and a Twitter feed, we’ve now also got a Facebook page. So now, folks can follow us in whatever way is most convenient for them. Keep up with all our efforts to raise scholarship funds …
Divorcing God: Secularism and the Republic
In 1965, Billy Graham was working on his book “World Aflame.” He had just finished a chapter vividly describing the sinful conditions in America, and gave it to his wife to read. Ruth was sobered by the writing and returned the document to the study where he was writing and laid it on his desk, saying, “Billy, if God doesn’t …
He Either Doesn’t Understand or Has Forgotten
You know things are bad when your own family starts to turn on you. But of course, most of us have known things were bad since the start of Barack Obama’s presidency. Now, Obama’s second cousin, Dr. Milton Wolf, a board-certified diagnostic radiologist from Kansas, puts into words what most of America has long been thinking:“Barack Obama is the worst president in …
Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler
The historical origins of Mardi Gras are much debated, but many of its traditions seem to have their roots in early Celtic Christian rituals in ancient Gaul, Ireland, and Scotland—which, in turn, seem to have even earlier Greek and Egyptian antecedents.Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is a celebration of life’s excesses before the austere self-sacrifices of the Christian season of …
Stranger than Fiction. Way, Way Stranger.
According to Facebook, that iridescent, omnipresent gay rainbow none of us seem to be able to escape these days (even on sports radio, the NFL Network, or NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage) now boasts more than fifty shades of ummm, different. The social-networking behemoth’s 1.2 billion users can now customize their profile “gender” to something more granular than the two previous—and …
Drake’s Prayer
Sir Francis Drake was a daring Elizabethan sailor, explorer, and warrior. On his greatest adventure, he departed Portsmouth in 1577 aboard his ship, the Golden Hind. His aim was to raid the stockpiles of Hapsburg Spanish gold on the west coast of South America. At the conclusion of his raids, he ventured far to the north, claiming Coastal California and …
Heart Work
“Heart-work is hard work indeed. To shuffle over religious duties with a loose and careless spirit, will cost no great difficulties; but to set yourself before the Lord, and to tie up your loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attendance upon Him: this will cost you something. To attain ease and dexterity of language in prayer and …
The Elephant in the Room
Business consultants are fond of creating metaphors to describe the common human dynamics and leadership dilemmas that all companies, organizations, and societies face at one time or another. Thus, they talk about frogs in the kettle, flies in the ointment, straw on camel’s backs, bulls in china shops, lead dogs, mule trains, hundredth monkeys, and tipping points. There are water …