This Sunday marks the beginning of Kingdomtide, a liturgical season generally observed by Protestants, especially Methodists and Presbyterians thanks to the ongoing influence of Martin Bucer, John Calvin, George Whitefield, and Charles Wesley. The season extends from the end of Pentecost until the beginning of Advent. Worship services during Kingdomtide stress the extension and growth of God’s great Kingdom. Inevitably, …
The Courtier’s Curses
With the news that Planned Parenthood has launched aggressive attack ads against George Allen and Mitt Romney, I immediately thought of the quip of Thomas Chalmers: “There is honor in the distinction of being disdained by the wicked and ignorant, for quoth the poet, ‘A courtier’s curses are exalted praise.’” Planned Parenthood is the world’s oldest, largest, and best-organized provider of abortion …
New Urbanism at Its Best
First, there was the remarkable High Line project in New York City, transforming an abandoned overhead rail line into an elevated park. Now, plans are underway to bring the same kind of transformation to New Orleans with the very ambitious Lafitte Corridor. These projects represent New Urbanism at its best.
Jesus “Wife” Papyrus: An Elaborate Hoax
According to a report in both the Guardian and the New American, the much-ballyhooed discovery of a supposedly ancient fragment of papyrus is in fact a fake, say multiple scholars and experts. According to the September 18 issue of the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Karen King, a professor of early Christianity at Harvard University, said the fragment is from the third …
The Pro-Abort Attack on Hobby Lobby
A coalition of pro-abortion clergy has launched a protest against Hobby Lobby for it’s commitment to life. Hobby Lobby, which operates more than 500 stores in 41 states, says providing the mandated ObamaCare coverage for “morning-after” abortion drugs violates its Christian owners’ “deeply held religious beliefs.” So, the company has sought relief in the courts. The company’s attorney, Kyle Duncan …
Modern Genocide
Turkey’s Armenian Genocide: 1915-1918 – 1,500,000 Deaths Soviet Union’s Ukraine Famine: – 1932-1933 – 7,000,000 Deaths Japan’s Nanking Massacre: 1937-1938 – 300,000 Deaths Nazi’s Jewish Holocaust – 1938-1945 – 6,000,000 Deaths Pol Pot’s Cambodian Slaughter: 1975-1979 – 2,000,000 Deaths Rwanda’s Genocide: 1994 – 800,000 Deaths Bosnia’s Ethnic Cleansing: 1992-1995 – 200,000 Deaths Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Triage: 1973-2012 – 55,000,000 Deaths
The Origin of PP’s Genocide
At the beginning of the 20th century, Eugenics was perhaps the most revolutionary of the pseudo-sciences spawned by the wild-eyed vision of Scientism—the almost religious belief that somehow science could solve all the problems of humanity. Having convinced an entire generation of scientists, intellectuals, and social reformers that the world was facing an imminent economic crisis caused by unchecked human …
St. John’s Wayside
Having failed to gain permission from the Glasgow Presbytery to plant a much needed new parish church in the city, Thomas Chalmers and the session of St. John’s Parish Church were grudgingly allowed to create a “chapel of ease” or a “wayside chapel” within the boundaries of their current parish district in 1822. The spare and utilitarian building was designed …
Essential Political Maxims
“The greatest political storm flutters only a fringe of humanity.” G.K. Chesterton “Almost nothing is as important as almost everything in Washington is made to appear. And the importance of a Washington event is apt to be inversely proportional to the attention it receives.” George Will “Being in politics is like being a football coach; you have to be smart …
How News Becomes the News
“Every news story is a reflection of the reporter who tells the story. Most news does not inhere in the event. An event becomes news. And it becomes news because it is selected for notice out of the buzzing, booming confusion around us. This may seem a fairly obvious point but keep in mind that many people believe that the …
St. John’s
The parish experiment of Thomas Chalmers in Glasgow had as its cultural center of gravity a remarkable architectural icon (see image above). The foundation stone of St. John’s Parish Church was laid in 1817 by Henry Monteith, Lord Provost of the city, and Chalmers, then the pastor of the city’s prominent Tron Church. The building, situated at the end of …