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Jennifer A. Nolan
Top Stories This Week
- A North Carolina Christian’s Response to Pastor Charles L. Worley
by Andrew Simpson 05-23-2012 - 10 reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained For Ministry
by Eugene Cho 04-30-2012 - A 'Bizarre and Peculiar' Ruling
by E.J. Dionne Jr. 06-01-2012 - What is the Chief Political Concern of the Bible?
by Tim Suttle 05-24-2012 - The Problem with Certitude
by Gary L. Tandy 05-25-2012 - Dear Pastor Charles Worley: We Condemn Your Words of Hatred and Cruelty. REPENT!
by Eugene Cho 05-23-2012 - The Gospel According to Lady Gaga
by Richard Beck 01-09-2012 - Rob Bell: 'Surrender the Outcomes'
by Cathleen Falsani 05-09-2012 - Jennifer Grant Asks 'What is an Evangelical?'
by Jennifer Grant 05-23-2012
by Karen Sue Smith 01-01-2012
Fifty years after Vatican II, will a new generation of lay Catholics lead prophetic change in the church and in the world?
by David Cortright 05-01-2010
... and make us all more secure. A pragmatic approach to nuclear disarmament.
by David Cortright 08-01-2006
Official rhetoric has helped fuel an escalation of tension between the United States and Iran. Do recent negotiations mark a change in direction, or just a temporary detour from the highway to military attack?
Comments
A "Christianity without God" sounds like an odd proposition, but it's worth trying on. If there is a God, He's the Lord of some 200 billion galaxies, each of which averages some 100 billion suns. We can do the math at home, if we dare.
What Dr. Hamilton was groping towards was the realization that the Creative Power behind our Universe does not live to serve the human ego. American Christianity, OTOH, all too often panders to our basest emotional needs. Churches are filled to burtsing with overeaters, overdrinkers, social incompetents, exploited workers who barely give the union movement a fighting chance, and all-around social incompetents. Pretty often, church activity straightens these fools out, but just as often, it makes them feel "loved" and "special" without getting them to earn either of those designations.
The loving sacrifice of Jesus on the first Good Friday is a matter of historic fact, no matter what your cosmology is. But however you look at this great character, as God made human or just another mortal man, to share in His sacrifice requires certain conditions, and they are very tough ones. The very least a "Christian" should do is be very, very cautious of his ego and its personal needs, and to keep it at arm's length 24/7/365 -- and during leap years, 366.
What do I mean by all this when it comes to William Hamilton? Read his writings!!
WHY are you feeding us this pointless twaddle?!!
You mean, you don't mind pharmacists and, eventually, doctors and nurses deciding what forms of medical care they will or won't give you, based on their own philosophies and religious ideas -- and to Hell with your concrete needs. Punishing stupid girls is one thing (and it's bad enough!), but this freedom to deny care is only going to expand.
Love your main point, but that snark at the end was really not necessary. The only way to fight this is to get enough people together for proper medical protection and care for everybody. So far the U.S. proletarian (you know, the 99%) and liberal record on this basic need has not been stellar.
Same for you, Nowlin. You guys are getting off-topic.
Small beer, Kansas. Stick to the subject at hand!!
Just what do you mean by this?
Not so simple! For many patients, especially in rural and hard-up areas, that pharmacy is the only game in town. Either pharmacists should make it their policy to fill whatever prescription comes their way, regardless of their likes or dislikes, or they shoud get out of the pharmacy business.
The morning-after pill removes a tiny clump of cells; the embryo is, in effect, nothing more than a microbe. It deserves some protection, sure, but not at the expense of young married couples suffering from wage suppression, rape survivors, or teenagers made pregnant by their wicked uncle Ernie. Anti-abortionists who can't abide basic social-welfare protections ought to go back to the drawing board and think hard about what human life is for, whether they are their brother's or sister's keepers, and why Jesus made such a point of telling us whose good neighbor the Samaritan was (Lk. 10:25-37).
This is one reason why the American taxpayer deserves so little sympathy: we don't watch where our money is going. Too much of it is going into efforts to spy on misunderstood cultural groups like those Muslim communities in Newark. And then there is our war money...
Why do "muscular" conservative Christians choose to consort with companies that permit forced abortions, but launch attacks on a sort-of liberal President who calls for a modest tax increase on the well-to-do?
Everyone who reads this excerpt should read the full article. It shows why "muscular Christianity" should develop its real strength by getting off its high horse and showing some courtesy to its well-intentioned opponents, not denying either their faith or their humanity, and walking humbly with its Lord, Who has little tolerance for such overweening pride -- the worst of the Seven Cardinal Sins. The Lord's house has many mansions; if only most border-bound American churchgoers knew how many Christian sects and worldviews there are! We can also find different ethical and theological takes on the morality of abortion on rcrc.org.
Thank you for your carefully-considered answer to my complaint, but I'm with BlueDeacon on this one. We Americans will have to grow up and insist on protecting others' liberties -- no matter what the political Flavor of the Year is. And you may not like it, but even when I was a Rosary-clicking, daily Mass-going Catholic, I had no compunctions about my hard-earned health-insurance fees going to pay for someone else's birth control. It struck me as a nice hedge against both abortion and overpopulation, both of which cheapen human life. Those women are only trying to live within their means; let's not make that impossible!!
Thanks for your reference, hayes. These legal precedents are worth a hundred pages of modern smoke-blowing!
That's a very handy link, hayes. Thank you for posting it.
Can you read over this post of hers again, Sam? Having to pay extra for someone else's birth-control coverage IS a compromise on her belief -- her belief in equal coverage for all ratepayers and taxpayers. Apparently you don't believe in that; the Catholic prelates certainly don't.
Why are you blaming the Government for this?? The CATHOLIC BISHOPS decided to raise this big stink about ponying up for conraception, which doesn't even destroy any fetuses!
You cannot even let one of your fellow conservatives extend an olive branch to the left without trying to snap it off! faithanddisability never even defended any liberal Christian's social views -- only their membership in the Body of Christ, and their outrage at having that membership denied by would-be gatekeepers like you. The Church is a big tent, and it includes followers of many different persuasions.
You're right about Graham's slighting of Romney's Christian allegiance, but Romney isn't in such trouble as Obama is. He wants contraception, which is NOT abortion, available to non-wealthy female patients; in his book, women's health should not depend on their bosses' or insurers' religious ideas, Christian or otherwise. If I had a baby, I would never dream of taking out a health-insurance policy with the First Church of Christ, Scientist, even if I thought faith healing was just fine for me.
We are getting too much like Lucy Van Pelt. In a great Peanuts strip some 55 years ago, she began "handing out lists of people's faults," as Charlie Brown put it. Her excuse? "I'm just trying to make a better world for me to live in." Would the world be a better place with more room for all the babies? Sure it would -- but the same people who don't want contraceptive care available "on my dime" to struggling young non-mothers also don't want any "welfare" money available "on my dime" to those same women when they are stuck with no means of support for their babies -- exactly why contraception is so popular with non-rich young women.
Your first two points are well-taken; the rest, not so much. In your book, any disagreement is incivility, and our President, for all his faults, handles disagreement better than many in your camp do.
Yeah, sure, if we want to be honest with everybody. But part of a loving witness to Christ ought to be an effort to conduct our public lives, and our voting behavior, in such a way as bot to trample on others' rights.
Usually, I detest your comments, but this one makes better sense and is less hysterical than almost any comment I've read on the blogs I visit. Thank you for saying this stuff.
One thing we must all watch out for is a tendency to insist that others live by our ideology, no matter what their convictions are or how much it costs them. This is why Catholic couples ignore their church's prohibition on birth control, and why our President's health insurance body should do the same. Most Vatican prelates had hoped to see the ban lifted.
This sounds good, until one realizes that many of our prisoners are locked up for activities that many of our greatest thinkers, including Abraham Lincoln, didn't think of as criminal or morally objectionable behavior. To be precise: nonviolent use and trading of banned drugs. I'm all for penance for murderers (read Bo Don Cox for an inside view of that sort of journey), but our incarceration-happy culture ought to do some repenting of its own, before it gets to treating those confused youngsters and mentally troubled patients whom it has wronged so badly as "prodigals."
Needless to say, I'm all in favor of granting the franchise to convicts who have done their time. Taking it away forever is just one more sign of our vindictiveness.
No, it's not a broken system. What we have is a broken proletariat.
It's made up of workers, poor people, social out-groupers, and women who will not stand up for their rights or the common good. We're too busy minding our personal situations, because that's easier.
Most Americans have "agreed" with the single-payer health insurance idea for at least 25 years, but have done almost NOTHING to make it a live option in legislative or electoral politics. Few American women will take the kind of pro-active stand that would force the Catholic bishops to back down on the contraceptive-coverage issue. I don't want to hurt your feelings; you sound like someone who really fights the good fight. But people who will not go to bat for a social benefit do not deserve its protection. Benjamin Franklin:"They that will give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety will deserve neither and lose both." I would hate to lose medical coverage, contraceptive or otherwise. But I'm dreaming of a health plan that demands that would-be members register and vote, come Hell or high water. This attack on contraception is one more consequence of our sheeplike neglect.
Sure, but does Jackf's position make much sense? I don't hold with all the defensive squawking these people in Wisconsin are doing right now, but their work is valuable and should be fairly compensated -- right??
There will be victory for public employees, and employees generally, when the people realize which side their bread is buttered on. So far, the people's response to every attack has been anemic at best. This may be true social justice: not so much remuneration for hours worked, but respect or contempt for the person's answer to political challenges. Non-answers do not win much respect, and neither does "Hey, I work HARD for my money!" So do the butchers at cruel fur farms -- and there's a reason for why your local anti-vivisectionists want fur-farming stopped. Is your work hard? So what?! The real question is: does it contribute to society? If teachers and firefighters can't affirm their obvious value strongly enough to slow down Governor Walker, there is less to "working America" than meets the eye.